


Cupid

by AlphaKantSpell



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Cupid - Freeform, F/M, Magic, Pre-Canon, Prequel, Soul Bond, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-06-27
Updated: 2014-02-25
Packaged: 2017-11-08 16:56:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 46,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/445421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlphaKantSpell/pseuds/AlphaKantSpell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint had never been a normal person.  Not even in the unusual fellow sort of sense – he was literally not a person.  To be more precise he was a Cupid.  He had wings and everything.  Clint even had an inexhaustible set of magic love sparking arrows, though that’s getting ahead of things.</p><p>A story where Natasha is Clint's soulmate but he isn't her's.</p><p>Takes place in the years leading to Avengers</p><p>DISCONTINUED</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Stupid Cupid, Stop Pickin' On Me

“Well Fuck.”

The capital F was important. It stood for “Frankly Ulcers Can Kill,” as in he felt a lethal ulcer forming because of the given circumstances. Those weren’t things a person said upon meeting the love of their life, with a capital F or otherwise. However, Clint had never been a normal person. Not even in the unusual fellow sort of sense – he was literally not a person. To be more precise he was a Cupid. ‘Match Maker, Match Maker make me a match’. That kind. He had wings and everything (though they were tiny – no bigger than a quail’s wings, not even restaurant quality). Clint even had an inexhaustible set of magic love sparking arrows, though that’s getting ahead of things.

More important than all the menial tidbits about Cupids and their duties was the fact that Clint could see the love strings that connected any random person to any other random person. They came in a multitude of colors from platonic friendly yellow to Roxanthin Red for romantic love, invisible and intangible to non Cupids. He once followed a rosebud pink line from a quiet girl on a city bus to a farm hand several miles away. The string connected the two by their ring fingers over the long distance without snagging. Clint pricked the woman with an arrow (just as invisible to her as her own love line) with an urge to stop by the farm one day soon. As far as he knew the couple was still happily married.

After years of adapting to the various shades of strings, Clint learned to zone them out. It was like lingering too long in a room with clocks. Eventually all the annoyances faded away. Clint hadn’t acknowledged a love string in months.

Today though, moments away from killing the Black Widow (reiterate: THE BLACK WIDOW), Clint was blinded by a glaring neon red string that wove around the woman’s pointer finger and stabbed directly into Clint’s heart. His heart, not his ring finger – the difference was important. Black Widow was his soulmate but he wasn’t hers. The strings only attached themselves when potential lovers have contact. For the City-Farm couple it was at a farmer’s market, for Clint it was staring down a scope when Black Widow turned to look at him. He froze and dropped his bow without hesitation.

The result of the new bond left Clint winded and reeling. It was like taking a battering ram to the chest. Pretty soon an entire SWAT brigade would barge through the hole in his heart to defuse the situation. Until that metaphor settled, Clint was dodging Black Widow’s strike as best he could. In the precious moments after Clint dropped his guard, Black Widow climbed up to his position like a dog ready to flush out birds.

Clint sucked when it came to hand-to-hand. Coulson had told him so more than once. Whenever he fought with his fists, Clint found himself tracking wind speeds and where the best snipe points were instead of dodging. The same was true now. Black Widow was a woman worth her reputation. Although covered in dirt and her fair share of blood, the woman was beautiful as a ruffed up ruby. Perhaps a bit on the thin side but hey, Siberia was cruel to weight reserves.

Clint also suffered from an “images in mirror are closer than they appear” situation. He liked a distance between himself and an enemy. This close he forgot how quick things moved. Black Widow on the other had moved like she used men like Clint to mop the floor. She probably had. Horrified affection pooled in Clint’s gut as he ran for his life. He blamed the damn string for that. At least his soul mate was kickass.

“Can’t we talk this out? I don’t want to fight you anymore. I threw my bow away! That’s gotta count for something, right?”

Stupid, stupid, stupid. He shouldn’t have chucked his bow but the weapon scalded his hands – emotionally in any case. The moment the strings connected, Clint knew he was done. Once he’d shot a mark he was connected to and it nearly killed him. That one had a thin eraser pink string, hardly even a color to be considered red. If he shot Black Widow he’d be yanking out what was left of his heart, like a plug to a sink. Everything Clint was would drain away until he was a husk. He’d seen it happen to another Cupid before. It was horrible beyond description; like all the color in the world turned sour. Also, Black Widow was hot and it’d be a shame to kill off two sweet asses with one arrow, if Clint did say so himself.

Clint kicked her back but Black Widow used his momentum against him. Clint rolled like he was trying to set a record, over the gravel and shards of ice. Tiga climate sucked worse than his fighting skills. He lunged out of the way as his other half came at him with a knife.

Uhhhg, he didn’t like the sound of that, not one bit. What the hell, Universe? Hadn’t they done enough to him? Clint thanked whoever was still on his side in the cosmos that Black Widow didn’t have any more bullets to empty into his face like she’d done to the other members of his team (hopefully James could get plastic surgery – it came with the SHIELD benefits package).

Clint sprang up and skidded away from Black Widow as his equilibrium cussed him out. Note to self, rolling away is a bad idea.

“What’s your name?” Clint asked with a frantic confidence. Like genius and insanity, hilarity and hysteria ran a thin line. “I mean aside from Black Widow. What do your friends call you?”

He asked in port to distract her and in part because he couldn’t stop wanting to know her. His sharp eyes catalogued her movement, the way her hips or her hair swayed, and that perfect bow of her lips. It sucked being in love, especially when the emotion collided with you like a freight train.

“Friends? No? No friends?”

Black Widow kept coming with spin kicks and a knife aimed at his face. She made no sound and her eyes were as frigid as the sleet pouring down around them. Oh, Clint hated that look. He hated it more than the fact he was infatuated with a mark. Those were the eyes of someone already dead, following the chain of command with no more resistance than laundry being hung out to dry. Clint saw the expression on suicide bombers in Iraq. The love strings disappeared first in a radiant green flame. The conscious decision of death over life always resulted in the same tragic brilliance, even in men with black colored strings.

Black Widow had the same expression but her – their string shone with an intensity to make the sun wear shades. It was hot to the touch and alive! So alive and begging for Clint’s attention that he knew somewhere under the mask and makeup and programming that made Black Widow was a woman desperate for help. Somewhere under the world’s best assassin was the woman of Clint’s soul.  
“What about your family?”

No reaction. He dodged a quick swipe but got tripped by a foot. Their string twisted between the two like a glowing, writhing eel. As Clint stumbled and cart-wheeled away the string pulled slack like a fishing line. Clint kicked up a flurry of snow. If Black Widow really wanted to, he’d be dead by now. That thought kept him talking.

“That’s alright. My family’s dead – at least the parts that mattered. My older brother is a bastard. You have any siblings? Middle child, I’d guess. Got that vibe about you. Oldest children are shackled with responsibilities and the youngest gets all the love. I know that’s right. Just about the only thing my parents could agree on was spoiling me rotten until the day they died.”

Black Widow snarled under her breath as she attacked and Clint counted it as a win. They danced around each other now, both with their paws at the ready. Someone got Widow’s code name wrong. She was more of a tigress. Clint removed his guns and his knives, tossing them aside without a look. Black Widow tracked the weapons with her eyes, gaunt shock about her face. Clint shrugged. Honestly, he knew he was crazy at this point.

“The middle child gets left alone to decide who they are. That’s you, right? You decide your own path, don’t you?”

“You talk too much,” Widow said.

First words out of her mouth. Clint wanted to dance. Instead he got socked in the throat. Clint squawked and wheezed at once, which was as unpleasant as it sounded. Caught in the whirlwind of dizzy agony, he tumbled into the wet snow and spat up something gross. Although down, he could have had his throat slit, not punched. Perhaps there was hope yet.

“You know nothing of my childhood,” Black Widow bit. She kicked him over and put a knee to his gut, her blade to his throat. Still wheezing, Clint’s drew red lines in his skin against the knife, though none of them were more than a paper-cut in depth.

“I know you aren’t one to be controlled.” Black Widow yanked him by his hair, tugging a few locks loose. Clint winced then laughed. It strained his throat so much he started hacking again. “You know you’re on a leash and more than anything want to gnaw it off. I know what that’s like.”

“You know nothing of what it’s like.”

They were so close now; flush together, an eye lash’s distance from kissing. Fire made its way into Black Widow’s glacial eyes and he was so happy to see the emotion he wanted to sing.

“Why didn’t you kill me? You had the shot. You had the shot for twenty seconds.”

“Thirty-seven,” Clint corrected. “I had you before taking out your men.”

She yanked his hair again, arched his neck for slaughter. Clint breathed heavy through his nose, every rational thought screaming at him to move but his blood was cool and perfect in Black Widow’s presence. Maybe the Universe was onto something; he felt good.

“I didn’t take the shot because I didn’t want to be the one to stop you when you’re so close to breaking free. You feel it, right? Maybe not today, maybe not this moth but sometime soon you’re planning to overthrow your handler and escape.”

“Shut up.”

“You’re not going to kill me either, are you?”

“I said shut up!” She kicked him again and dragged the knife. Clint swallowed and tried not to giggle from adrenaline. He needed to focus, needed to center himself with his arching mind set. Being so close was really throwing him. “I can kill you now; bleed you like a deer.”

“You can. And then what? Go back to your handler? Not after this. Not when you’re so close to getting away.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re alive . . . but you’re dead right now. Going back to your handler is a sure-fire way to crawl back into your grave. Just come back with me and be alive.”

Did he read that off the back of a dime store romance? He had to have read that off of a cheap novel. Clint made fun of men who spoke like that; all heartfelt and meaningful while tripping on their face down and up escalator.

Black Widow seemed to agree. Her sharp mask cracked as a laugh tore from her chest. She dropped the knife and then his hair to hold onto his coat collar. Black Widow curved in on herself in a fit of giggles, worried little noises like snapping twigs. Clint had no idea what was going on but he grinned up at her and couldn’t help but join in. When she started to shake with a hysteric emotion that curled his toes, Clint reached up to touch her face. Black Widow didn’t cry but her eyes were squinted shut. Along their line, the string fluctuated in color like a sign with flickering lights. It settled on red quartz, fragile but beautiful. She accepted Clint’s palm against her cheek, his dirty and numb fingers smearing blood across her nose.

“What’s your name?” he urged again.

“Romanoff.”

The name fit so well it was like she was a story-book character. Stunned but not entirely surprised that his soul mate bore a name with such a fearsome reputation, Clint smiled.

“It’s nice to meet you Romanoff. Would you like to see my helicopter?” He wiggled his eyebrows as she scoffed.

Just like that the moment was gone. Romanoff stepped off him and retrieved her knife. She sent a flat, warning look to shank him if he made any sudden moves. Clint couldn’t stop smiling – interacting with Romanoff was like when he added fire to one of his stunts at the circus. If the fun wasn’t dangerous it wasn’t fun at all.

“Is that what you say to all the girls?”

“Only the ones I want to impress.”

He moved to a sitting position, watching Romanoff as she stared right back. Her left hand twitched and dull excitement was about her eyes. They were actually going to do this. Clint wasn’t dead and he’d somehow convinced his soulmate to come back with him. The hell did that even mean? No one taught him about this. Before today he didn’t even think Cupids could have soulmates. A love connection, yeah, but love was easy. People loved their food and their TV shows and their pets. A soulmate though, that was something decided before a person was born by whoever The Powers That Be are. The short answer was that Clint was in some deep shit.

“Coulson, I have a situation,” he said into his mike. “I don’t think you’re going to like it.”

::::::::::::::::::::  
:::::::::::::  
:::::

For the first third of Clint’s life he had no idea what he was. At puberty, his parents decided. At puberty they would explain his heritage and duties. The same process was expected for his older brother, Barney. Until the boys were old enough to see the strings that connected lovers they had no reason to know their family’s history, especially since the parents were defected from the clan. Until then the Barton boys would be raised as perfect mortals.

It was a good plan but best laid plans are subject to a wrench in their system. For the Bartons it was a car crash. Clint and Barney (both under ten) were scooped up by Child Protective Services and dumped into foster care. From there the unstoppable force that was Barney fled with Clint to the circus. Both boys remained unaware of their heritage for another handful of years until Clint started noticing girls. Up high on his perch, Clint liked to watch the goings on of guests and workers. Better than that, he got to check out the butts and boobies of every cute girl.

Much to his surprise, he noticed a string connecting his brother to his most recent girlfriend by their pointer fingers. The string looked like wool woven into light and its orange color felt fleeting to Clint. To be honest Clint didn’t think Monica was the right match for his brother. That acknowledgement surprised Clint. Never before had he paid any attention to the romances of his brother or anyone else for that matter. All of a sudden he could look at a person and know who would be a perfect match for them. Clint scoffed at himself and trained harder with his archery.

He asked Barney about the string later when the strange string was still there and stretched an impossible distance with Monica gone. Barney denied the string’s existence even though it was bright and almost tangible to Clint. He reached for it but pulled away when his heart fell past his stomach. The most unsettling sensation over came Clint, like his spine had become a spider. It evened out when he moved away.

Clint rationalized the event as another of Barny’s jokes until he saw more than a hundred strings from his perch connecting everyone in sight. Green, gold, lavender and mauve strings crisscrossed the grounds. From Clint’s perch they wove the messiest yarn scarf imaginable (and Clint received a hand-made yarn scarf every Christmas from The Woman With No Arms). What was odd about the strings was that they had no resistance to other objects. Clint saw strings that cut through buildings and trees and even a funnel cake stand. They didn’t snag or tangle. The only things they avoided were other strings or people, keeping at least a three centimeter distance. They jumped over, wiggle around, or swayed side to side to avoid contact. Seeing all of them moving at the same time, vibrating, changing color, dodging, extending or contracting depending on the distance from its persons was all a little much. Clint felt sick watching it all.

Either this was the most elaborate prank Barny ever constructed or Clint was certifiable.

Lucky for Clint the resident fortune teller turned out to be both the real deal and experienced with magic-folk. Clint accepted the title with begrudging grace. No point in denying what he was after all these years. The fortune teller was the same one he visited now, Madam Cassandra. After convincing SHIELD to take in Black Widow and making sure she would be properly cared for, Clint made a B-line for his old stomping grounds. Coulson promised to look after Romanoff while he was away (though Clint suspected it was to make sure she didn’t kill anyone opposed to a friendly check-in).

In his years away from the circus, not much had changed. Diamond in the rough attractions were hidden amongst two-bit shows. Fair rides were still straddling the wrong side of safety codes. It even smelled the same, like popcorn and dirty sex. Clint took a deep breath, both nostalgic and glad his got out of here when he had. Time had not caught up with the circus where even the air was stalled in the ‘60s. At the front entrance the same security guard inspected tickets and grunted at guests as he had since Clint was a child. He squinted once at Clint but said nothing. Either he didn’t remember Clint or the circus had a ‘Once You’re Out You’re Out” policy. Both could be true. When Clint left it hadn’t been so much, “This is all I know – this place is my family” as “OHMYYGOSHSHITIGOTTARUNNOWI’MGONNADIE”

Clint cut through the crowds following a luminous alabaster string. In all his years’ only one person he met was connected to such a color. The string led him to a tent the size of a club house decorated by a middle aged drag queen from the ‘70s. It was gaudy and sultry while somehow remaining hidden. Patrons wandered close then away, like they were drawn away by an unseen force. A person did not meet Madam Cassandra by accident but by destiny. Or so Madam Cassandra said. Clint huffed and prepared himself whatever torments Cassandra had for him today.

“Clint Barton, I’ve been expecting you,” Cassandra hummed on cue as Clint pulled back the flap to enter. A hot blast of warmth enveloped his face. Compared to the cool Iowa breeze outside, Cassandra’s tent was like a sauna.

“Yeah, I bet,” he snaked back, taking a seat on the pillow offered opposite the Fortune Teller. Despite its age the pillow still managed to be fluffy enough to engulf half of Clint.

Madam Cassandra was the picture of elegance, draped in enough robes to make Queen Antoinette jealous. Cling suspected she was hiding an air-conditioning unite between the outrageous train of sleeves. She wore the darkest shade of every color imaginable, from a deep viridian to a sooty brass flecked with violet. A heady aroma of spices swarmed about the tent from burning incenses and a smart looking tea pot sat on the table between the two. Cassandra mused with laughter and drew two cups, tea leaves at the ready.

“If you would be so kind as to pour?”

“You really want tea? In here?” It was at least 80 with 60% humidity. Clint felt like he was drowning just sitting there.

“Has my routine ever been different?” Cassandra asked. Clint shook his head and extracted himself from the bean-bag quagmire. As he poured he brushed already forming beads of sweat from his forehead. “Two cups are set, Clint.”

“Has my routine ever been different,” he quoted back. “I’m not a tea person.” Besides, it was too hot to drink boiling liquid.  
Cassandra glared and her enchanting persona shattered like an ice sculpture to a sledge hammer. Her eyes narrowed and her features sharpened. Clint gulped and poured himself tea. The only woman who had come close to being as scary (aside from his beautiful and horrifying Black Widow) was Lady Galadriel from Lord of the Rings. Clint blamed Coulson entirely for showing those movies to him while both men were drunk and should have been in the medical ward from earlier concussions. Nothing like mixing meds and alcohol while playing a Lord of the Rings drinking game!

Honestly, sometimes Clint wanted to travel back in time if only to slap himself.

Cassandra smiled like a freakin’ “U” and set pinches of lavender tea into the cups. Clint pulled a face at that. He hated lavender; the color, the smell, the fact that it was always a candle and in most hand soaps. Clint hated lavender so long he hated it out of principal.  
“I see that you have made a bond.” Cassandra took an elegant sip of her tea and Clint wondered if the nerves in her tongue had burnt off years earlier. That tea was like Hellfire.

“How can you tell?” He ran a finger by the bond, unable to touch or interact with it but admiring the color. Since both he and Romanoff had settled the string decided to be a red velvet. If he was being honest here, their string was the best Clint had seen. Totally processional opinion. Not biased at all.

“There’s an air about you. I’m afraid if I don’t pin you down with a rock you might soar off.”

Clint laughed between sips of the yucky tea. “Please don’t. I’d like my feet not to get squished.”

To be honest, Clint felt good, really good. He hadn’t felt this great in a long time. Maybe even never. He wanted to run and shoot arrows and his wings wouldn’t stop fluttering like coy tassels on a dancer’s dress. The dumb appendages never liked being in concealed clothes but it was worse now than ever. They itched and felt crushed like wearing shoes two sizes too small. All Clint about were all those statues and depictions of buck naked Cupids. Was that the reason? Did they all fall in love and strip for life? Barney was damn lucky he hadn’t inherited their father’s magic genetics.

Clint snorted into his drink. Magic genetics was a silly phrasing.

“About that, the bond – care to explain why you never warned me I could get one?”

“Do try to recall our original meeting. I noted that everyone has a soulmate but not everyone finds them.” She took another satisfied sip of tea and Clint stuck his tongue at her. “It is your destiny, no privilege to guide others to becoming whole.”

“But you never said I was one of those people! I’m a freakin’ fairy for pity’s sake! I didn’t think I counted as a person.”

Cassandra patted his bicep. “There, there Barton. A person’s a person no matter how tiny his brain.”

“That’s not the right quote.”

“I’m paraphrasing.”

“Your paraphrasing stinks.”

“Thank you, I’ll keep that critique in mind.”

Both took another drink, Cassandra cooing and Clint wincing. The years had been good to the fortune teller, her previous corn hair weathered silver. Kind wrinkles gathered about her eyes, making the woman appear mid 40s instead of her indeterminate Gandalf age. Another note to self: stop watching Lord of the Rings. This was getting weird.

Clint watched his string with a sigh of distress. He wondered how Romanoff was, what she was doing at the moment. Was she angry he left? Was she scared? Had she broken out and taken down SHIELD? Nah, if she had Coulson would have called. Oh, unless she killed Coulson. Hmm. Maybe bringing a wolf back home was a poor choice. It was that or freeze in Siberia. Leaving Romanoff alone on the battle field was not an option. Even pulling away from her to speak with the fortune teller had been excruciating. He wanted to put his face in the crook of her neck and learn the pattern of her skin. More than anything he wanted to get close to his soul. If things were different – if they were mutual he bet there’d be no problem with the two just holding to each other.

However, it wasn’t mutual.

“I’m not her soulmate, by the way.” Cassandra’s eyes flashed to his but Clint forced his gaze away. It kept zeroing in on the string. Damn thing. “Her side is connected at her pointer finger but mine is right here.” He jabbed his chest. “Her string is lose and ready to pop off. I’ve seen pointer finger romances. It isn’t pretty. They last a few hours; maybe a few days then rip apart. What happens to me then? What happens if she disconnects?”

Cassandra was quite for a long, terrible moment. “What color is it?”

“Red.” Had been since it sprung into existence.

“What shade?”

“Do I look like an interior decorator? I dunno, it’s red. Pretty dark, more brown on her side.”

Visibly relieved, Cassandra sighed. “Good. That’s good. You have hope. The color is strong, pure. Go back to her and foster the bond. If you work at it the bond will grow and move finger to finger. It may never get to the heart but the ring finger is close.”

“I don’t understand. How can I be her’s but she doesn’t belong to me?” It didn’t seem fair. He was miserable and in love over here and owned by soul to Romanoff and she didn’t contribute even a pinky to their relationship. Love was crap.

Cassandra shrugged. “Perhaps she is incapable of love. Perhaps she does not have a soul. Is this a human or one of your kin?”  
“Human. . . I think.” Maybe she wasn’t human. That would explain how talented she was – and beautiful. Clint had never seen another human or otherwise so enchanting before and he spent six months undercover with SHIELD’s resident succubus. All of the magic folk he encountered had souls. He saw their strings just as easily as on humans. Was it even possible for something alive to bare no soul? Even golems, giants made of rock had souls.

“What if I don’t want her, or to have her as my soulmate?” The very idea stirred a shudder through his spine. Everything in his being rejected the thought like bad milk.

“I think you have your answer,” she observed. “Part of your soul is with her. You can no more ignore that than your own lungs need for air.”

Another tremor ran through Clint when he thought of his next question. This was worse than the one before, pulling off his own fingers. Clint’s lips sealed shut and his chest caved like he’d been punched. Despite the emotional turmoil he had to ask, had to know.

“And if she leaves me?”

His voice was quieter than he intended, small and muffled in the near silence of the sound proof tent. It was so quiet Clint swore he could hear the lapping of candle flames.

“You’ve wondered why my string is white, yes?”

Clint flicked his gaze at the haunting string.

“It’s crossed my mind.”

“My soulmate left. He ended our marriage without a word and took another woman. I can still feel him, even now, but no affection remains from either of us. The connection is draining. It’s sour. Before then I was a business owner, rich beyond imagination. Feh. After he left, my ‘abilities’ manifested and it became too cumbersome to keep the regular job. I fled here and stayed.”  
“Does it hurt?”

“Of course it does. You never get used to missing half of yourself.”

“Does he know?”

“That we are soulmates? No. He assumes he has early onset arthritis, bedridden and cared for by his wife.” She spat the last word. “I am alive because I can feel the fragments of our connection – we were both each other’s half. The same cannot be said for you. If she leaves you may be cut off completely. You’re at the edge of the map, Barton. I’ve never met anyone in your situation. There’s no telling what may happen.”

“Would our split hurt her?” If she would be okay then he’d be alright with it. He didn’t matter, not anymore. Cassandra drew a hand over his hair.

“There’s no way to know for sure.”

Clint groaned into his palms. They smelled like lavender. Clint hated lavender, it smelled like heartbreak

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \---the suicide bomber is a reference to "The Hurt Locker", a film Jeremy Renner acted in. Most of Jeremy Renner's films have been absorbed into my head-canon of Clint, especially the military ones. For this story, Clint served in the US Military for several years as a bomb detonator before being picked up by SHIELD.


	2. If I Can't See You, You Can't See Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SHIELD isn't much different from the other organizations Black Widow has inhabited over the years. In the end, all of them want to use her.

He lied, of course. Clint Barton. Clint Barton of SHIELD promised freedom. He promised a home and a reality away from those who wanted to control her. Of course he lied. They always lied.

The cages inside SHIELD were no different than the ones back home except they were stained in stars instead of sickles and hammers. Both were self-righteous to the umpth degree and believed themselves to be clothes in secrecy. Their disguises came with a metaphorical name tag and facebook account. Agents passed by her cell, trying and failing to appear that they weren’t spying on her. After three decades of slipping through shadows she knew when someone was trying to sleuth.

SHIELD’s only one up on her last organization was that it was cleaner. Blood stains did not mar the walls and she’d only seen one rat in her first week. It was also much warmer, though muggy. She knotted her hair into a bun with itself but relief was still playing keep away.

Guards still watched her day and night. That had not changed from her time in the Widow squad. From her closet sized cell she watched their patrol. An ever present face was Agent Phil Coulson, handler to that bastard Barton. Coulson was not a person to cross, she noted within moments of meeting the man. All the tell tale signs of a super spy was about him, the discreet clothing choice, tracking gaze, and thin smile that was more of a mask than some of her more elaborate rouses. Coulson was a killer in Armani. This was a man who’d go toe to toe with a god and go down calm and collected but swinging. Giving him a curt nod, she’d been glad to have been Barton’s mark. Coulson would have shot her and put two bullets between her eyes just to make sure. It was the thorough effort that counted.

The second thing Clint Barton lied about was his promise that he wouldn’t leave her. The whole way from Siberia to SHIELD’s Pacific base he’d been saying it. Hand cuffed, blinded, and immobilized by a drug, she was helpless in his arms. Barton begged for her restraints to be removed then refused to let her go after being denied. He scrubbed grime off her face and promised that he wouldn’t let anyone take her away. Since she was sedated at the time, perhaps none of that had actually happened. It wouldn’t be the first time she saw something her captors wanted her to.

Not two days after being shown her new kennel, Barton was gone.

“I’ll be back soon, okay? I’m going to Iowa to see a friend about something important but then I’ll be right back. No pit stops, no gift shops, not even a bathroom break.”

Barton put his palm flat against the reinforced glass between them. She stared straight ahead and unmoving as she had for the last forty four hours. Four walls (one with the door transparent), a toilet, and a bunk had become her world. It wasn’t an unfamiliar one. Compared to her quarters when she’d been programmed as an organ thief, this was Beverly Hills.

She’d been reprogrammed - turned into putty and molded again so many times she didn’t even know her full name anymore. Black Widow was her identity. Romanoff was a rare moment of clarity, a light at the end of the labyrinth and a trick light at that. Those moments that had been far and in-between through her life surfaced around Barton. He was like a tether guiding her through a dark cave. With Barton as a point of reference, she knew where she was and where she was going. She could almost remember herself.

Then he took himself away.

“Roman, I’ll be back. I promise I’ll be back and I’ll get you out of here. Just hold tight for me, okay?”

Telling him her name had been a mistake. Roman, Miss Red, Off-ly Pretty, and Viva Italia In Siberia” were just a few of the nicknames he’d constructed.

A last regretful tap to the glass and Barton was gone for almost a week. He said so when he was back, though she hadn’t kept track. She hadn’t seen a point in counting the days in purgatory. What was the point of trying to get out? SHIELD was no different than the great Red Squad, Winter Bear, or even the Black Widows. In the end every organization lied and tricked and wanted her to kill.

“The state of Iowa sends its regards,” were Barton’s first words. Haggard and messy haired, Barton looked about as good as she felt. He sat cross legged and put his dominant hand to the glass that separated them. A bright smile bloomed on him so wide his teeth showed.

“Hey! You’re looking at me today. Hello Roman.”

She snapped her attention back to the left corner of her cell but she couldn’t shake the strong sense of satisfaction she’d gotten from Barton so happy. It felt similar to catching and returning a small child’s balloon. Baron was a moron, but a routine one as it turned out.

Twice a day Barton stopped by to her cell. He strolled by once in the morning and once in the evening, if his greetings were reliable. Clint smiled every time, sat down as close to the glass wall as possible and told her about his day. He nagged about junior agents and boasted Coulson’s skills. The two were close friends. When he got bored of that he started telling her about himself, about his favorite restaurant that sold sinfully greasy burgers and the songs that got stuck in his head. He spoke in English and Russian and even tried writing to her in Latin before doodling little arrows and dinosaurs in the note pad. She never said a word, didn’t move except to stretch. When she did this she made sure not to make eye contact with Barton but each time he stood to attention like an eager puppy with meat dangling above his nose. Other agents passed by the cell but Barton paid no attention to them.

“Still talking at Captain Comatose?” a guard asked. She got the feeling that they were just as annoyed with Barton’s pestering as she was. Barton just laughed.

“You make it sound like I’m trying to have a conversation with a refrigerator. Nah, Romanoff and I understand each other.” He didn’t look away from her the whole time he spoke, thumb circling his chest like he was playing with piano wire. Her attention yanked closer to Barton, she could see his knees before she righted herself. Barton laughed again, happier than a “Price Is Right” winner.  
Two weeks passed like this. Then Monday, June 11th happened. Clint sprinted to her cell in a flurry of joyful worry. He slapped his palms over the wall and only just kept himself from bouncing.

“We won! They’re letting you out today. You have to go through a stupid psych-evaluation and gat a babysitter to follow us around but you’re getting out!”

She looked at him this time and Barton was positively giddy.

“Everything is going to be great, you’ll see. I’m right here, okay? If you don’t like what’s happening or just want to get away call for me.” Again his hands were at the glass but she couldn’t turn away this time. “My name is Clint Barton. C-L-I-N-T B-A-R-T-O-N. I’m here, okay? I’m not going to let them hurt you, I promise. Please, just don’t kill anyone or trying to get away. I’m convincing them to get you a position here.”

Ah. There it was. Barton was playing the Friendly Ally card. It was part of an assignment to recruit her. This wasn’t the first time a “friend” helped her into chains. Her gaze slipped from his and she allowed herself to zone out everything else he said. It didn’t matter. He was lying like they always did.

Two guards and Coulson approached her cell. The door was opened and her hands cuffed behind her back. Barton buzzed around, warning them to go easy on her as Coulson swatted him away.

“Precautionary,” Coulson said about the chains. She understood, though Barton didn’t seem to.

The four led her down the hallway, past other inmates and agents on their way to the elevator. Most everyone paused to watch. One prisoner whistled. Barton pounded a fist against the widow and smirked as the other man recoiled.

When they neared a vent she took her chance. In a maneuver much like ballet, she swung out of her cuffs while taking out a guard. The next was knocked out as she used him as a boost to the vent. Her muscles screamed at her for the sudden use but adrenaline muted it. She punched through the vent without breaking her hand and scrambled inside before Coulson could get a word out.

“Shit.”

“Red, what are you doing?”

“Move, she’s in the vents. Prisoner is in the vents. Immediate lock down. Subject unarmed but lethal. Red-haired female, 5’7”, code name Black Widow. Do not kill. Repeat, do not kill.”

“Romanoff, this wasn’t part of the deal!”

She was already gone. He said not to kill and she hadn’t. He said he wouldn’t leave her but that didn’t mean she couldn’t. Twenty minutes of wandering the vents later and she relaxed a little. No one had found her yet. The heating and fans hadn’t been turned on so she was safe for now. She rested on a bulge at the edge of a drop, fifteen feet down to the next section of ventilation. SHIELD was just as hallow as any other organization. One just needed to know how to travel through the marrow. She breathed for the first time in years.

Moments later Barton shimmied up the drop. When he was in kicking distance she thought about putting her boot to his face but decided against it. Dealing out broken noses weren’t as much fun as they used to be.

“How did you find me?” Her voice felt like cotton after not using it so long. Barton locked himself in place at the lip of the drop near inches from here. There wasn’t enough room for him to get a hand around her, let alone his whole body. He was stuck with the choice of saying or climbing back down. Barton grinned even as his legs started to shake.

“I had an idea.” For a bizarre reason he looked at her hand. “Besides, no one knows these ducts better than me. I use them to keep an eye on people.” He winked. “Well, mostly to spy on Coulson because he’s fun to annoy. He’s a little freaked right now but he’ll warm up eventually. I’m still crossing my fingers that I’ll be chosen for best man when he and his tie finally marry. He’ll tie the knot, get it?”

She laughed for several reasons. She was exhausted and crammed in an air vent with a comedian assassin literally at the edge of plummeting to his death. Also, his jokes were so bad she thought about tossing herself down the shaft just to get away.

“Yay, laughter! That’s always great. Could you maybe move so I can climb up? My legs are starting to cramp.”

After another breath she backed away to let him up because ‘why not?’ Barton climbed the rest of the way and dwarfed her when they sat side by side. The vent was cramped for her and while Barton was a little on the short side his arms were monsters. Cheering at his own accomplishment, Barton relaxed as best he could. Their breathing magnified in the tight metallic vent; loud pants like the sound track to a space station porno.

“Coulson, call off your hounds.” Clint tapped his ear as he spoke. Next he ran his fingers in front of his chest like he was pinching something. The movement didn’t look like pantomiming a bowstring but then again she didn’t have much knowledge about archery. Knife, guns, and bombs yes, but not archery. “Yeah, I can handle it. Trust me this once okay? I wouldn’t say this if I wasn’t sure.” After a moment he guffawed. “Okay, okay. LA is a low blow. Asshole. Yeah, yeah. Tell Jim Street hi for me.”

He tapped the spot again and turned back to her.

“I just bought us another fifty minutes. How awesome am I?” She scoffed but settled like a cub drinking honey. Crammed in a tight vent with an assassin she didn’t trust, she hadn’t felt so relaxed since that mission in Australia. Barton appeared equally at ease. He stretched as best he could and closed his eyes. She was surprised his tongue didn’t loll out. There were seventeen ways to kill him now, each of them painful. Yet he was falling sleep next to an unhinged killer.

Was he trustful or dumb?

No one had been this close to her outside of sex. Even then it was only physical. She hadn’t been so trusted by someone who knew what she was capable of since . . . she didn’t have a time frame.

Something broke away in her chest. Everything shifted in a pleasant spill like tossing clean laundry onto a bed. It was warm and fresh and so clean she didn’t want to touch it in case she got it dirty. Clint watched her, his fingers clamped into a loose fist over his heart. His eyes went from her hand to her face and radiated child-like joy. She wasn’t put off by the smile, just rested her face on her knees and breathed again. It felt wonderful.

“Romanoff, what’s your first name?” Barton asked when they both calmed.

Black Widow was her initial thought. Sonja Braginski was her second, though that was an alias. As was Scarlett Johansson and Olivia Wenscombe.

Somewhere in the back of her mind Natasha was on repeat. A memory snagged her.

“Natasha, I think,” she said to Barton.

_She looked through broken glass as at a roaring fire, a short but built man yanking her along through the snow. She was too young to keep up so the Canadian hiked her onto his shoulders._

_“Hold on, Natasha. Don’t look back kiddo.”_

_She did. A fire consumed her home and parent’s corpses. She couldn’t remember their faces. The Canadian sprinted then and drew two foot knives made of bone from his knuckles._

“Natasha? Are you sure?” Barton was closer than he should have been. It didn’t worry her as much as it ought.

_“After today, Natasha Romanoff won’t exist anymore,” Winter Soldier told her. She stood tall and composed despite the black eye and swollen lip. “You will be Black Widow. Are you prepared for this?”_

“Yes,” Natasha answered to both. Barton was the one who smiled and arrested her attention.

“Natasha Romanoff. I like it.” He flashed an honest and bright smile at her. Natasha’s own lips quirked at the edges. “What do you say we get out of here, Nat? I’m pretty hungry.”

Natasha studied her fingers and counted her heartbeat. Natasha nodded and the two made their way out of the vent.

Coulson wasn’t angry but leveled Natasha with a disappointed frown before beckoning her to the elevator. Natasha took her psych-evaluation without complaint. For the next week she endured test after test studying her mental and physical condition. Barton was always there, cheerleading from the wide and sneaking her tea when no one was looking. At the end of the week she was given a room with a curfew. On the plus she wasn’t chained and had a TV. Natasha was still monitored by video feed but being issued a Probation Agent badge more than made up for it.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \---LA and Jim Street are references to the events of the film "S.W.A.T", another film Jeremy Renner acted it. For this head canon, Renner's character impressed Samuel Jackson's character (Fury was undercover looking for fresh SHIELD recruits) enough for Fury to recruit him before the end events of the actual film. LA has been a sore spot for Clint ever since.


	3. The Hunt Is On

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint and Natasha are kept apart from each other. To keep the Cupid from going bonkers (well more than he already is), Cloulson sends him on a "milk run" of a mission. SPOILERS FOR MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: GHOST PROTOCOL. Do not need to have watched the film to understand chapter.

Barton was a high ranking elite assassin, miles above other snipers who used actual guns. His skills in archery were so advanced that he might have been banned from Olympic competition because it would ruin any other athlete’s chances for decades. Barton was a halfway competent agent when he wasn’t screwing around and bordered on the laughable side of inappropriate. Like a dirty joke, one laughed or winced when interacting with him. Clint was also a hopeless, heartbroken magical creature who loved to nap in the ventilation shaft above Phil’s desk.

“Barton, either stop grumbling and do something productive or I will shoot you down like a kite made of tissue paper,” Phil said with a saccharine promise as he worked on his latest report. Another sigh and metallic thumping answered his warning. A moment later Clint slipped out of a grate and plopped onto the floor by Phil’s side. He snagged a pen and some paper to start doodling crude pornography.

“I’m bored, Sir.”

“Then go to the range,” Phil spoke through his teeth.

“Already been. Can’t clear my head – too many couples being hopelessly in love with the wrong person.”  
Of the handful of people who knew what Barton was, Phil was the one who got stuck caring for him. He knew about Barton’s “condition” before meeting the man. Fury pulled him aside when Barton had been assigned to him and said, “Barton’s literally a fairy. It’s some kind of magic crap. He’s your responsibility now. Read up on it.”

Fury leveled him with a gaze that said he wasn’t joking.

Phil knew everything about Barton. He knew about the sugarplum wings, the arrows, the strings, and Barton’s compulsive need to play matchmaker despite his personal disinterest in romance. Barton explained it as a person scrubbing their hands raw because of an OCD. He was helpless to follow instincts, even if he didn’t want to.

He also knew Natasha Romanoff, the hair-trigger assassin they picked up on Barton’s pleading was Barton’s soulmate. Funny world.

The same woman was sent to SHIELD’s boot camp more than a month ago to see if she could assimilate into the organization. If she could, Romanoff would be assigned to Phil in the same division that Barton was in. Separating the two was an impossibility. Clint threatened to leave otherwise. The prospect of owning two world class assassins or neither swayed Fury.

Since her departure, Barton had become an unreasonable lay-about. He snapped his fingers. He twiddled his thumbs. Barton moaned and moped and demanded Phil check in on how she was doing. Phil, being SHIELD’s best handler and most composed badass resisted the urge to intimately show Barton twelve of the forty-two ways to strangle a man with a tie and cufflink. There was a thin margin of error where Barton snuck into his personal space to give him a Wet-Willy (Barton’s data should note that he is in fact nine years old) and Phil may or may not have elbowed his throat.

When Barton had no mission, or paperwork, or training, or magic-stuff to do he buzzed around Phil (which turned out to be often). Faced with a lovesick and boredom nauseous Cupid, Phil employed his last best distraction. He tossed a phone uploaded with “The Bachelorette” and “Amazing Race” like a grenade and waited for the inevitable explosion.

“Sir, we should sign up for this. We’d totally win.” He gestured at the most recent episode of Amazing Race, the contestants enduring a demanding a ‘Road Stop Challenge’ of zipline-ing across a valley. “I do this at least once a mission. We’d totally swamp the competition.”

“SHIELD operatives are supposed to indulge in self-restraint and practice anonymity,” Phil reminded. “Explain to me how appearing on a TV series that travels around the world would help SHIELD’s goals.”

Barton frowned at him. “We could take aliases. We could wear masks! Come on, for a vacation! We’ll split the money fifty-fifty and you can finish your Captain America card collection. Half a million should do it, right?”

Oh that sounded nice. Phil just needed the holographic bubblegum card with the Captain and his Commandos and the first edition Cap vs. Hitler. Each was several thousand dollars – enough to afford a humble house. But by golly he wanted them. Phil checked online all the time to see if there were any in lower prices but the last one that looked affordable was given to a museum in DC. He flew down the day its Captain America memorial was opened, slipping through the crowds in shades and a wiggling smile he couldn’t control.

Turning away from the thoughts, he replied with, “SHIELD provides us with all the money we need.”

“But not for all the things we want.”

Barton licked his chops and circled around Phil. Okay, this was getting weird. No more reality TV for the archer.

“Come on Sir, it’ll be fun.”

“Not going to happen, Barton.”

Barton groaned and flopped down on the floor like a two year-old. Phil was surprised he didn’t start flailing his limbs.

“I bet Natasha would go with me,” he said into the cardboard-textured carpet. A pause later, “I miss her.”

Rolling his eyes instead of chuffing Barton’s head, Phil swiveled to look at the fallen agent. This was getting embarrassing.  
“Explain again why you can’t just shoot her with one of your arrows and make Romanoff fall for you.”

Barton gagged at the idea, though Phil summarized it was for show. “Can you fall in love with yourself? Literally be romantically in love? So deep in love that you go on a date and cuddle up to a mirror? Talk about getting married to yourself and growing old with yourself? I’m damn proud but I’m not Narcissus.”

Phil tried to say something but he was baffled by where Barton was going with his point. “You can’t make Romanoff fall in love with you because it’ll make you fall in love with yourself?”

“No – well yes. Kind of.” Barton ran furious fingers through his hair. “Let me try again. Part of my soul was added to Natasha’s before she or I was born – that’s how soulmates work. They have their own soul and a little extra, like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with pickles on it.”

“That’s disgusting.”

“With all due respects Sir, it’s delicious, you pansy. Anyway when a person meets their soulmate their love strings connect instantly, even if the couple isn’t in love at the time. It’s like . . . seeing a mirror for the first time in your life. You realize what you really are. It just all fits.” Barton couldn’t stop a smile. “Because part of my soul rests against hers I’m given a VIP pass to her ermm, I dunno, heart.”

“You don’t know?” Phil didn’t know whether to laugh or sigh.

“Hey, I wasn’t exactly brought up in this stuff. Since I was raised human, the Cupid Brigade or whatever the hell they call themselves just gave me enough information not to go crazy. I wasn’t even given any training or marks to make fall in love. They don’t want anything to do with me. I’m some kind of half-breed degenerate to ‘em. So instead I joined the military so I wouldn’t go crazy. I wound up in SHIELD and didn’t even think about souls and all that jazz until last month so excuse me for not knowing jack.”

He crossed his arms and huffed. Phil made a point not to tell Barton he resembled one of the tiara-clad girls he’d been watching earlier. The man’s tender ego could only take so much.

“Why can’t you make Romanoff fall in love with you?” Phil asked again to get the conversation back on track. Barton whined and pulled at his hair.

“Because the part of me that’s with her will know what’s happening and stop itself. She’ll know something’s up and might reject me completely. If your rope is starting to lose you don’t swing on it like Tarzan. I have to go slow. Besides, people don’t ‘fall in love’ at my touch. The arrow just alerts them to the connection they already have.”

“And that wouldn’t work on Romanoff because you would be spoofing yourself?”

“Yeah. Something like that.” He flopped lay on his back and stared at the ceiling. Phil did not envy Barton’s life, even if he was a little jealous that he found something as unbelievable as a soulmate. To be half of a whole must be an amazing sensation, although tragic in Barton’s condition. “Who the hell says spoofing?”

“Go back to the TV, Barton,” Phil urged as he returned to his paperwork.

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Clint’s soul was with Natasha but Natasha’s was somewhere else. Whenever Clint thought about it he wanted to curl up in a dark spot and pretend he wasn’t alive. Through the connection he could feel Natasha, her heart beets and her emotions. It wasn’t home, though. Without Natasha’s soul alongside his, Clint felt like an unwelcome guest. He craved her soul in his chest but every time he clawed at it nothing but his own was there.

How could something like this happen? What did he do wrong? Was the Universe just lazy when he’d been sewed up and forgot some of the pieces or did he do something to lose Natasha?

He turned over in his bunk and tried to ignore it. His life hadn’t exactly been easy before this whole soulmate fiasco. An orphan, a runaway, a carnie, a soldier with too much blood on his hands then an agent for a spy organization that strictly speaking “didn’t exist” if he was caught by its enemy or even the American Government. Add being a rejected Cupid to the mix and that was Clint’s history. Nothing had ever been cut and dry with him. Clint supposed he liked it better that way. It was always more fun to be round-about than expected.

Once a girl at the circus called him predictable so Clint grabbed a moth out of the air and ate it.

True story.

His active communicator droned for Clint’s attention. Yawning into his elbow, Clint rolled again and picked it up.

“Yeah, Boss?”

“New mission, protection detail. Should be your speed,” Coulson said without missing a beat. Insulted, Clint slammed his chest hard enough to be heard over the two-way. “I’m sorry. You must have me confused with the other Barton.”

Protection details were given to n00bies. They were also annoying as hell. Clint hated them almost more than escort missions. Clint loved the solo act but having SHIELD’s best eyes put him in more protection details than anyone in their right mind could stand.

“Just get down here. I’ll fill you in on the way. You have ten minutes to meet me at the flight deck.”

Scrambling to get ready because a sucky assignment was better than none, Clint kicked off his shorts and hurried to his closet for the SHIELD issued uniform. It was a dark purple monstrosity but the color reminded Clint so much of his circus days he adored it. The quiver and arrows were next after checking each one individually. It was a task drilled into him from his greenhorn years. Competitors and asshole guests loved to switch out arrows with duds if a performer wasn’t careful.

With a last look around Clint was ready to go.

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Clint bumped knuckles with Kimball the moment he entered the jet. Kimball was a pretty straight faced guy but he knew how to have fun. Next Clint looked around for Coulson but the senior agent wasn’t to be found.

“You’re flying. Coulson said he’d brief us on the way.”

The archer grinned like a manic and slipped into the empty cockpit, Kimball taking shotgun. Clint adored flying. It was a freedom beyond imagination and just dangerous enough to keep his pulse from getting bored. Since he’d learned to fly an old bi-plane for the circus in one of his acts, Clint was hooked. He’d have gone into the air force if archery hadn’t been such an addiction. Obviously Coulson was trying very hard to keep Clint happy and in turn away from his office. The guy sure had a heart when he was annoyed.

“Just us?” Kimball shrugged at his question as Clint went through a safety check. “Any idea where we’re going?”

“Croatia,” Coulson said over the radio after Clint got that turned on. The Cupid fought back a giddy bark of laughter. He adored Croatia. “Good to hear you, Sir. Mind filling me in on the assignment?”

“Agents Barton and Greggs, the both of you are teaming up with IMF members in Zagreb, Croatia. They will approach you at the Zagreb Museum of Contemporary Art at 0200.”

Clint’s happy mood plummeted. “Really? IMF? We’re teaming up with those guys?”

Impossible Mission Force’s Leader and Director Fury had a long history of working together. Rumors led junior agents to believe they were neighbors growing up or brothers in arms during the Vietnam War. Clint was willing to bet both men sold their soul to the same devil for an acute ability to lead secret organizations dedicated to snooping. When he offered the bet to Coulson the other agent said, “No comment” like a pro. Had to be true if he wasn’t flat out denying it.

“Interagency relations are important,” Coulson reprimanded. “Your mission –“

“If we chose to accept it,” Clint quoted. Kimball said nothing but his lips twitched.

“Is to help them protect a couple who are on the run from various organizations. Their images should be on the left monitor now.”

Both agents looked to the monitor in question, images of a happy couple hand in hand. The monitor ran through several images of the two together in various locations and then as individuals with lists of information. Mr. and Mrs. Ethan and Julia Hunt. Clint gaped. Ethan Hunt was one of the world’s best agents, known even to SHIELD.

“No way, IMF’s golden boy? Why does he need protecting?”

“He’s run into trouble on honeymoon. As I hope you are aware, his wife is a civilian. Aside from being polite to keep a fellow agent’s wife alive, she knows everything about IMF.”

Clint groaned. It was common for agents who were married to civilians to tell their spouse everything about the organization so that their company assured their safety. He supposed it was also nice not to lie to your spouse. He thought of Natasha and how she might react to Clint telling her that part of his soul was jammed into hers and that he had wings. If she stopped laughing long enough to take him seriously she might pull a gun or another knife on him.

No, they were spies and secret keepers for reasons. The bone-headed move to tell a spouse about an agency jeopardized everyone. Civilians liked to gossip and weren’t trained to withstand torture. Since IMF had its hand in the pocket of near every US organization, Julia Hunt was a target with outstanding information. Ethan turned his wife into the most succulent mango in a room full of thirsty criminals.

“Protect the two for three weeks. A new team will be sent to relieve you. Also, the Hunts must not be contacted. They aren’t to know you are there.”

Kimball and Clint shared a glance. “I don’t understand, Sir. Wouldn’t it be best for the couple to know we’re there to protect them? I doubt any one of us can hide from a man like Hunt.”

Coulson cleared his throat before speaking again. The other agent was harried like Clint had never seen him outside of an undercover operation. “Hunt has a history of disappearing on his protection details. If he knows you are there he’ll create an escape.”

“Sounds to me like he’ll be fine.”

“No one can stay on top of their game forever.”

“Don’t tell Fury that.” Kimball sniggered into a fist. Clint winked at him as Coulson collected himself. “Why aren’t you joining us, Sir?”  
“I’m being assigned to an undercover opt.”

He made a put out expression when Clint grinned at him. Coulson had a tendency to go overboard with undercover assignments. He adopted another reality and forgot protocol – sometimes even the mission at hand. Once he took the alias of a plastic surgeon and was so successful at it he earned enough money to retire to Tahiti and married an anti-venom specialist.

“What’s your job this time.”

“Manager of a Greetings Card company.” Both Kimball and Clint laughed. Coulson pinched the bridge of his nose. The screen fizzled black as its feed was cut and the agents outside gave Clint a go-ahead for departure. He and Kimball fastened their seatbelts and went through a last safety check before heading out.

A blast of adrenaline coursed through Clint’s fingers so strong he forgot about Natasha for a good two minutes. His thoughts were dragged back to her before the base was out of sight.

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Croatia was one of those hauntingly beautiful counties people looked at in travel brochures but never put any serious thought into visiting. With its history of political strife from neighboring countries, Croatia was at times as dangerous as some of its northern cousins. The cool Mediterranean weather kept temperatures even. Better yet was the water, a long turquoise coast that stretched the border and crisscrossing crystal streams so clear it was like looking through air.

Clint loved it. The country was a little bit of everything, with its Grecian beaches and tiny European villages. Trees were tall, residents polite to fault, and the sun wasn’t glaringly bright but gentle as the even tempered Croatians during morning prayers. For all its intents and purposes Croatia was the best country no one knew about.

Of course Clint’s mark had to ruin it.

The two agents from IMF, Niels and Kawalski were okay, perhaps a little on the quiet side but they made up for it by buying awesome take-out. Clint ended up being made point, since he was the team member with the most experience. N00bies. Clint was loath to entertain new recruits’ questioning –

“Why do you use an arrow?”  
“Is that thing real?”  
“You grew up in a circus?”  
“Were you a lion tamer?”

No, he used arrows, multiple. Yes it was real, morons. Yes he grew up in a circus and no, he wasn’t a lion tamer. Does archery mean anything to you? (Also, the resident lion was a grouchy beast that ate his last trainer but the audience didn’t need to know that).

For these reasons Clint was very happy that his team was comprised of a Coulson look-alike in Kimball and two Smiths from the Matrix. He was also eager to meet the Hunts in person. As with any photograph or video recording, Clint couldn’t see the love strings on the couple in the images Coulson compiled. The strings only manifested in his vision when he saw a pair in person. Clint couldn’t even see his own string when reelected in a mirror or water. That was one of the many reasons Clint loved movies – they were clean of any influence from his being a Cupid. He could experience the world as everyone else did. It was a remarkable experience of clarity for him.

Together the four of them surveyed the Hunt’s safety base without being seen themselves. The Hunts lived for now in a low middle-class community comprised of painted apartments overlooking a river. A quiet hush befell the small community but it wasn’t peaceful. Clint might have been projecting but the air felt tense as a harp. Ethan and Julia moved to a new safe house in three week intervals, perfect for Clint’s group. On the first day, waiting for a sign of either Hunt in the early morning while mist wandered up from the river, Clint felt the air shift in an ominous direction. Any worry about the mission or what the sensation meant left when he spotted Ethan Hunt leaving the house for routine jog.

A bright lattice-red colored string jetted out of Ethan’s heart. It connected right to Julia’s; Clint saw it in clear view when she followed her husband outside a moment later. Soulamtes. A perfect bond. It hurt to look at too long because the string’s intense color and the shock of seeing it had Clint wincing. He felt sick.

Over the next two weeks Clint endured overseeing the Hunt’s day to day life as a couple in every sense of the word. They kept close to one another, one always holding the other’s hand or nudging their feet together when they sat to read. Julia would coo something to her husband and Ethan offered a grin to cure cancer. They didn’t speak often and argued less. When one moved the other was aware, like they understood the thin line that connected the two. Soulmates were a rare commodity in the modern world, one reason Clint had been so surprised by Natasha. Clint was jealous the moment he saw the Hunts and their perfect bond.  
It was something he and Natasha could never have.

Clint counted down the hours until Mission complete. Just one more week of eating protein bars and power soups before they were relieved by another team. At night the stars were so bright he had trouble going to sleep. Seven more days of watching two halves of a whole complete each other. Kimball told him he should lighten up more. That was rich coming from a solemn faced agent. One hundred sixty eight more hours of Mr. and Mrs. Perfect Love stealing kisses and holding one another like Clint never could for Natasha. Clint grew more and more distant with his team, speaking only when he had to. The four of them were quiet as gargoyles and knew exactly what to do when got a tip on a hit scheduled for the Hunts. Ten thousand eighty more minutes recognizing how empty his own soul was every time Ethan Hunt touched his wife’s hand.

He missed Natasha. Worse he missed her soul, longed for it when he’d never even had it. Every time he looked at the Hunts he was furious that they somehow managed to find their other half. Every moment was a painful reminder that Clint wasn’t and would never be enough for Natasha. It was a thought as humbling as it was terrible.

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At the end of the third week Clint was regretting every thought he made over the last two.

Clint couldn’t shake the feeling he should warn the Hunts. A group was planning a hit soon and his team was more than prepared for it but the sensation wouldn’t leave Clint alone. However orders dictated zero contact. If he made a move they might go further into hiding and the protection detail might lose them. Then it’d be his responsibility to flush the couple out. Clint didn’t want to delay his departure any more than necessary. More than anything Clint wanted out of Croatia and back on the shooting range. He hadn’t loosed an arrow in days. His fingers were getting stir crazy. So, like a good soldier he kept to orders and remained out of sight.

Ethan began his morning routine as usual the day it happened. Mr. Hunt jogged three miles every morning before afternoon heat kicked in. Every morning Clint followed him on his jog, though he was more of a sprinter than an endurance runner like Ethan. It gave him time away from the team and Julia who reminded Clint too much of Natasha. He concentrated on Ethan, on his own breath, and pushing his legs to the end of a goal. It was the closest thing to playing with a bow that he had while undercover. As usual he left the other three with Julia. In a worst case scenario Ethan could protect himself. The man was practically a magician with how often he escaped death. Julia was the one that needed the most protection.

At the end of the first mile the string that connected the two soulmates heart to heart vanished.

“Kawalski, what’s the wife’s status? Report,” Clint barked into his collar communicator. Fizzle and static responded. Clint’s heart plummeted to his toes. He feigned confidence and kept the same pace as before while jogging after Ethan. If anything was wrong he couldn’t afford to show it to anyone watching. “Report! Kimball, Niels, Kawalski – anyone report.”

This was impossible. Strings didn’t just up and vanish. Even if one of the partners died the string went into a supernova of color before disintegrating. The Hunt’s string disappeared like it was stripped away in MS Paint. One moment it was there and then it was gone. Clint would have thought something was wrong with his eyes but he saw strings everywhere else, bouncing along with other runners or stretching across the sky from apartments. Ethan’s connection to his wife was gone and he didn’t even know it, as a mortal couldn’t know it. Clint wanted to scream.

“Report! Report! What’s going on? Damn it, someone talk to me!”

Clint kept pace with Ethan, couldn’t take his eyes off him. Every nerve in Clint’s body was screaming to sprint back to the safe house to check Julia but he couldn’t afford something happening to Ethan either. He was half out of his mind before Clint centered himself on Ethan’s safety. The concentration was something akin to when he fixated on a target. His last best hope was that there were technical difficulties on the other end preventing his team from answering him. In half an hour they’d be laughing about this.

All three members of his team were unconscious at their posts. Each one had been knocked out with a tranq stiff enough to keep them under well after he and Ethan returned to an empty house. Nothing was broken and there were no outward signs of struggle aside from an upturned rug and the split open lock at the front door. Ethan moved into action without pause, barreling out of the house to scan the area.

Clint held his breath when Ethan looked right his way. Ethan was in a shoot first and ask questions later mood. When he looked away and sprinted down an alley Clint still didn’t breathe. Clint didn’t take another breath again until they found Julia’s body three days later. The police got her – rather fished up her remains. A smashed in face, butchered fingers, and a torn open rib cage was all that was left of the woman. DNA analysis from IMF itself confirmed the body.

A perfect pair, two halves of one whole, and Clint bludgeoned it. Their string was beautiful, elegant and strong and so bright it made his fingers warm. It was a rarity beyond rarity, something every Cupid strove to create in matching two souls. Their bond was beyond imagination, beyond perfection and so unattainable to Clint he scorned it.

Now it and Julia were naught but cold memories.

He should have warned them – he should have –

He should have done something.

“Damn it.” Clint pawed at his eyes from his huddle in his room. Neither he nor Coulson said much at his debriefing. There wasn’t much to say other than, “I fucked up a pair of soulmates.”

Clint’s shoulders shook and he spat flecks from his empty stomach into a metallic SHIELD issue toilet. His room was cold and dark, quiet except for the noises Clint made. He’d been in shock since seeing Julia being scooped into body bags and wincing Ethan’s break down. How did a person mourn the loss of half their soul? Clint had been unable to watch.

He missed Natasha. He didn’t even know her and he missed her so much he couldn’t think. He still couldn’t breathe, didn’t think he ever would again and was so paralyzed by the need to be held by his soulmate Clint couldn’t pick himself off the tiled floor.

He needed Natasha but she didn’t need him. He didn’t disserve her in any case, not a screw up Cupid who let soulmates die.

“Damn it.” Clint curled into a ball, his head tucked under his arms like a finch cowering from a dog’s maw. “Damn it.”

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Halfway around the world Natasha turned over in her cot, gritting her teeth together as another wave of pain throbbed deep in her chest. Although it was “lights out” hours ago a fellow recruit stirred and woke at the Black Widow’s subtle tossing.

“Heart burn again,” Maria Hill whispered in a tone made for cheating when pantomiming.

Natasha nodded. “Apparently I am still experiencing culture shock.”

The camp’s resident psychologist was the one to suggest that. Natasha doubted it since SHIELD wasn’t any different from other agencies besides from the over friendly archer. Also, her heart burn was getting worse the longer she stayed instead of waning as she acclimated. For the first few days it was a pang and now it was a full blown attack. Natasha would go to medical as soon as the sun was up. Allergies, she hoped; maybe over exposure to American independence. Americans loved to flaunt their individuality, even in a uniform military. At times it was off putting.

“We should learn sign language,” Natasha said to Maria before rolling back over. Maria huffed tiny breath of laughter.

Natasha dreamt of yarn spun from light prisms. It thatched around fingers. She dreamt of a man she almost recognized in sorrow. There was a wizard saying goodbye to his wife forever because she would always be in danger while they were together. Natasha remembered none of this when she woke but knew the heavy weight in her chest wasn’t getting any better on its own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Three references here. 
> 
> First the most obvious one, Clint's mission is William Brandt's from "Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol". 
> 
> Reference to Coulson's undercover opt as a plastic surgeon is reference to the film "As I Breathe" which Clark Gregg appeared in. 
> 
> Same for the Manager of a Greeting Card Company, a character Clark Gregg played in "(500) Days of Summer".
> 
> ART BY AVIBROSO http://avibroso(.)deviantart(.)com/


	4. Heart Ache To Heart Ache

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natasha's back and Clint is smitten.

Aim, breathe, release.

This was Clint's world for another two weeks. He woke, ate, and trained. He stopped pestering Coulson and shot more targets than the first day of the battle at Normandy. Clint was at the range so often he haunted it, sullen faced and without his usual flair. Other agents started to worry about the sharp shooter. Even Fury himself lent his worries about Clint to Coulson with a heavy glance that said, 'Fix It'.

Aim, breathe, release.

Clint stared at his image in a mirror, no string reflected back on him. He glanced down at the thin connection, clay colored and fragile. It looked more like a wacky smoothie ingredient than proof of soul. Touching his string-less image in the mirror, Clint wondered how different things would be if he never gained the ability to see them, like Barney. How easy would things be?

Natasha would have been another count on his kill total. His heart turned at the thought.

Aim, breathe, release.

His com unit buzzed at his ear but it wasn't until his last arrow that Clint tapped the speak button.

"Yeah, Sir?" Even off his game Clint addressed Coulson's call with a casual hello. Some things didn't need to change.

"This is the third try I had to contact you. Something the matter, Agent?" Coulson's voice was amused so Clint knew he wasn't in trouble. He rolled his eyes and scrutinized his targets. Clean, easy hits. To be honest he was past bored with SHIELD's training. Then again nothing he did for SHIELD was ever quite as fun as shooting targets off the back of an elephant. Performing in the circus spoiled him in a way.

"Just on the range, Sir."

"So I suppose you haven't heard the news."

Clint checked over his bow before moving to retrieve more arrows. "What news? Season Finale of Survivor? Who won?"

"SHIELD's newest batch of recruits are back from training and on Home Base." Clint's shoes shirked as he skidded to a stop. His bow, his prized interment of destruction that was more of a baby to the man slipped from his fingers. Clint gulped and chocked on air as he dove for the bow. "To be honest I'm surprised you didn't know. The base has been talking about their arrival for days now."

"How long has she been here?" Clint demanded as he ran after his own string. His lips twisted into a dumb grin as the color blushed to a livelier red. Warmth flitted back to his fingertips and Clint almost tripped over his own feet like a large pup tripping over paws too big.

"Six hours. You're losing touch, Barton."

"Oh ha ha. You know I don't keep time when I'm shooting." He took a turn and sprinted for the elevator, shouting at other passengers to hold the doors for him. They did and he whooped.

"Let me know how your reunion goes," was Coulson's last words before the line went dead.

Clint's heart thrummed like his ribs were bongos. He grinned and winked at everyone who made eye contact with him. SHIELD agents as a general rule were hard people to socialize with. It was to no great surprise that every member Clint smiled at scowled suspiciously. Clint didn't care. Natasha was back.

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Natasha enjoyed a quiet morning in the food lounge. SHIELD breakfast gruel consisted of brown sugar oatmeal and fresh fruit. It was good, better than the slop at bootcamp. Their coffee was still disgusting but Natasha had become used to it. She relaxed into her chair, the table situated close to a wall and abandoned aside from herself. She grinned a little at the thought.

Natasha, rather Black Widow gained a reputation at camp. Truth be told, she had one before going to camp as one of SHIELD's most wanted and came out of it with descriptive words like vicious, cold, and lethal. Natasha didn't believe she had done anything to encourage the rumors aside from focus on her job with single minded determination - but at least it gained her some peace. Even the staff sergeants at camp gave Natasha a wide birth. She loved it. Spending time alone was calm and serene, if a little sad from time to time.

Only Maria Hill for reasons Natasha still did not understand, tolerated her presence. Maria was downright immune. When Natasha asked about it Maria offered, "I'm here to train. What better way can I learn to become an excellent agent than to experience all there is to know from one of SHIELD's greatest foes?" Maria didn't say it to be cruel; Natasha even took it as a compliment. The two got along swimmingly.

Now at headquarters Hill was taken aside for a matter Natasha was not informed of, leaving the Black Widow to her own thoughts. She poked a cantaloupe ball before scooping it up. Natasha hypostasized SHIELD was able to afford the world's best technology at the expense of its meal bill. The food here was worse than tasteless.

Just as she went for another bite there was a shuffling of noise in the cafeteria. Natasha watched agents disperse or stand to gape from her peripheral vision. Before she had time to question something jarred her vision up and she was face to face with Clint, the senior agent in a flat out happy faced gallop to her table. His bow was slung over his shoulder and an arrow was grasped firm in his right hand. Clint waved with his left before yanking the empty chair across from Natasha over to the side immediately next to her.

The chair shrieked in the now quiet room, as still and claustrophobic as the vent he found her in more two months ago. Every other agent stood still as Clint caught his breath, fingers thrumming the table as he smiled at her. He put the arrow aside, just now realizing it was there. Natasha should have been unnerved; annoyed at the very least but an amused smile graced her lips. Clint rocked his chair back and forth.

"Hiya, Nat," he said like they'd done it a hundred times.

She laughed. Natasha could count on her hands the amount of times her laugh was genuine. Clint owned four of them.

What was it about this man, she wondered. What was it about him that got her more relaxed than she'd been even as a child. What was it about Clint Barton that made him give her a second chance and to follow up to make sure she was using it.

"Oh, they're feeding you this slop?" Clint grimaced as he frowned at her meal. "Remind me snag you some real food. What's your preference, sweet or salty?"

Natasha stared, trying to gage if Clint was trying to set her up for a prank or twist her answer into a favor for himself. Clint smiled back at her, eager to please and genuine as a newborn. Where had this man come from?

"Spicy, to be honest," Natasha supplied after a moment. Clint's eyes went wide.

"I know the perfect Vietnamese restaurant! Their spicy shrimp is good enough to sell your soul for." Pouting, he slapped his knee. "Too bad you're on your first three weeks of probation. As soon as that's up we are so getting out of here for some lunch. Their food is always best fresh or it starts to reek."

Natasha raised an elegant eyebrow at him and took another bite of her oatmeal. She found she wasn't hungry for it any more. Instead she put her silver wear down and leveled Clint with a gaze to make Sphinx take notes.

"What are you doing here, Barton?"

For a quick flash, Clint was crestfallen. His shoulders twitched like something under the fabric of his shirt squirmed but Natasha discarded the idea when Clint started to laugh. It was a happy sound, one that had no business with assassins. Natasha watched, transfixed by the sound. Hawkeye was less of a hawk and more of a waterfowl with all his jibber jabber.

He shook his head and waved any more questions aside. "I'm glad you're out of camp, is all."

"Why?" Barton wasn't making any sense. She couldn't understand why this stranger crawled his way into her life, changed it so radically Natasha didn't recognize herself anymore. She appreciated his effort but she didn't understand it. "Are you trying to prove something? Rescue me? I am not a prize, Barton."

He calmed, leaned against the table and smiled up at her, elbows on the table, hands under his chin. "No, you most certainly aren't. I'm not trying to prove anything. I like being around you, Nat."

She moved her lips to say something but there wasn't a response ready. None of her training in any life prepared her for this. From anyone else she'd have assumed it bullshit without question. No one did something for no reason. Even good deeds had something tied in for the doer. Clint kept smiling at her, genuine and happy. Natasha had no idea what to do with him.

She returned to her meal. No sense in wasting food, even if it tastes bad. Natasha had gone too many nights hungry as a child to pass the offer of food.

Clint continued rocking in his chair with a dozy grin. She made a decision to monitor him until she learned his angle on their interaction. Until such a time his company was not unwelcome. Agent Barton was unlike any other agent, unafraid by her cobra-like tendencies. It was a refreshing change of pace at the very least.

Noise and movement returned to the cafeteria in stages. The tabled farthest away started whispering fist. When the lunch line started to move normality was back, though the words of the day were "Black Widow" and "Hawkeye".

"You have any hobbies, Nat?"

She thought for a long while, longer than polite to see Clint's reaction but the archer was patient. She supposed he had to be as the world's best sniper. To be honest Natasha didn't think she had any hobbies. She was a trained weapon, a tool to be used by what ever organization she belonged to. Now and again she liked to read or listen to music.

There were moments when she was alone, when memories form all her past lives washed against her skull and she felt like she was going to do something drastic she ended up dancing. Just a simple routine she learned from the Black Widow training in ballet. Working through the steps emptied her mind for a while.

"Dancing," she allowed and stood. Clint grabbed the discarded arrow and followed after her like there were wings on his ankles.

"Dancing? Really? What kind – modern, formal, freeform?"

"Private," she supplied and dumped her tray in a dirty plate bin. Agents around them were none so subtly listening in. Clint didn't pay any attention at all but Natasha didn't like so many eyes on her, not when it wasn't part of an act to get at a mark. Natasha was most comfortable in the dark, watching and waiting for her prey.

Undeterred, Clint followed her out the cafeteria. He strutted beside her in the hallway, proud as a pigeon. Natasha liked that the hallway was quieter but she wasn't keen on how close it allowed other agents to be next to her. She and Clint were almost brushing hands. An agent hurried down the hall and Clint grasped her fingers to pull her out of the way.

He landed flat on his back with an unsympathetic Black Widow hanging over him.

"Wow!" he winced. His dopy grin was still in place and Natasha worried for a moment that she'd jarred his brain dumb. "That was impressive! A little help up?" He offered his palms to her. Natasha hesitated, then helped the senior agent stand. The calluses she was expecting, the warmth she was not. Clint's hands were warms as towels in first class seating. He didn't let go until Natasha pulled her hands back.

"Barton, I appreciate the effort for . . . a bond of one kind or another, but this will go much easier if you tell me what you want."

"What I – ?" True puzzlement swallowed Clint's face. Natasha scoffed. What was he playing at?

"A favor, something to repay the debt I owe you. Whatever it is explain it to me so we can both get back to work."

"Back to – Natasha, I don't want anything from you." She arched another eyebrow at him. "Scout's Honor. That's a sacred oath for American boys." He put a hand to his heart. When Natasha continued her flat expression Clint rolled his eyes. "Okay, maybe more information on your dancing and a smile now and again but that's all."

Natasha eyed him carefully as she scrutinized her next words. "This is not the first time I have owed a debt. I know organizations like this work on an economy of favors and I'd rather not owe a colleague."

Clint shrugged. "Then don't. That simple."

The skin around his eye crinkled as he smiled. He offered a last wink and headed in the opposite direction Natasha was going. She watched him go, startled and confused as when he arrived. Clint Barton was a strange, strange man who went against all her strategies.

If she wasn't so focused on her musings Natasha would have noticed that her heart burn stopped quite some time ago.

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Phil knew he was in trouble when he found Barton dancing in his office. The archer had a Frank Sunatra song playing from Phil's own computer, the man swaying with an invisible partner as he hummed along. Phil gave him a pointed look from the doorway to his office but Barton just winked.

Time to put and end to this foolishness. Phil crossed to his computer and shut off the song. Barton kept swaying like nothing happened. Phil wanted to burrow his face in his hands. At the card company he managed this tomfoolery was expected – expressed even by that attractive girl Summer and her boyfriend-coworker. However, the behavior was not acceptable for an agent of SHIELD, even if he was fairy folk.

"Is there something you wanted, Agent?" Phil prompted. Barton grinned over his shoulder at Phil and kept swaying.

"She likes dancing," Was all he offered before devolving into the instrumental part of the song Phil stopped. Barton's scat was pretty good, though unappreciated at the moment.

"I take it your meeting with Romanoff went well?" This was Phil's fault for requesting information on how they two got along. Nothing to do but bite the bullet. Barton was one of their best assets and keeping him happy and healthy was part of Phil's job.

"Better than well! She's so pretty! Gotta be the prettiest girl I've ever seen! She'd got these eyes, Sir, it's like the same shade as glaciers – you know that bright, piercing blue. And her hair – it's just as pretty as her string. It's red you know." He dipped his invisible partner. "That means we're in love."

"So the string have moved to her heart?"

Barton stopped at once and sent Phil a forlorn look. Nope then, not at the heart.

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It was silly of him to think things would return to normal. Barton tapped at his door like it was a piano and leaned into Phil's office without waiting for a reply.

"Her favorite food is split pea soup! Isn't that a hoot?"

Then he was gone and Phil was just turning around to tell him off for intruding. What the hell?

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This thing with Barton became a regular occurrence. Just about every time he spoke with Romanoff, Clint skipped back to Phil's room.

"She prefers cold weather to warm. When we get missions together can it be in cooler climates?"

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"She loves scarves but hates wearing them!"

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"Music! She loves music!"

She and everyone else on the planet. Clint didn't even explain what kind of music she liked, just a general appreciation.

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"She can speak twenty different languages!"

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"She hasn't seen any of the Harry Potter - can I barrow your copies? I know you own them all."

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"She dances ballet! Once her probation is finished I'm springing her for a play!"

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"Her favorite color is white! Weird, isn't it? Who picks white as their favorite color? She's Black Widow for crying out loud! But it's pretty cool, in a way. Actually yeah, it fits her."

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"You'll never guess what she said today~"

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"Her favorite number is eighty-eight! Isn't that crazy? My favorite number is eight!"

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Phil had to put an end to this.

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Breaking character was something of a difficult task for Phil. While undercover he typically stayed fully immersed in his new life. It was for these reasons that Phil was not sent undercover often, in particular without back up of some sort.

Shaking off the fragments of Vance the manager and picking up the pieces that were Agent Phil Coulson, Phil straightened his tie before entering Fury's domain. Junior Agents whispered about the one-eyed demon's lair but Director Fury's well lit office couldn't quite be described as that. He even had a bonsai on his desk, though it was a young one that still needed it's binding to mature. Big windows opened the office to the goings on of ant-like agents below and several monitors displayed news, a security feed, and the latest of Stark's mishaps. Phil bit the inside of his cheek. Stark pissed him off. A hero was someone like Captain America, not that drunk.

Phil had to give credit where credit was due in regards to Fury. Although well lit and almost zen, Fury's office was still Fury's office – and the Director knew how to be frightening. Phil was sure Nick was one of the few babies (aside from himself) that glared instead of cried when they were born. The Director turned away from his window and sat, offering Phil the opposite chair from his desk.

"Something you need, Boss?" Phil asked. Fury nodded with the slow regality Phil anticipated.

"How are things with the 'Cupid' situation? Any progress?"

Phil nodded and slipped a folder onto the table. He opened the file and nudged to the Director. Fury skinned the documents, top clearance information of Agents Barton and Romanoff concerning their relationship.

"Romanoff is settling well, adapting better than anticipated but not as well as hoped. She is reluctant to bond with anyone, even Barton; though he tries. Barton is . . . at a delicate time, Sir."

Fury snorted and looked at Phil. "Delicate time? Is he pregnant, Agent?"

"No Sir, nothing like that." Fury was joking, of course. Though, ever since the 'sex pollen' incident last year male pregnancies couldn't be ruled out all together. "Agent Barton has detailed that the bond remains attached to Romanoff's pointer finger but is a healthy color." Fury blinked and Phil shrugged. "He's worried about scaring the bond off Romanoff. Barton hypothesizes if the bond fails he may not survive."

"Yes, yes. That was explained in your last report. What about now, Agent? How are they fairing now?"

"Giddy, Sir. Agent Barton has been found dancing and singing in the halls and on range. I caroled him to a psych evaluation but he spent the entire session doodling hearts and arrows."

Fury covered the good side of his face with a palm and made an expression half between a grimace and a laugh. "Damn kid's smitten."

"Quite. In this state I'm comfortable declaring him unfit for duty."

Fury shook his head. "This is not what I wanted from this experiment. How long before we can put Barton back in action? We need his skills. Some use out of Romanoff would be nice, since we've already pooled half of Barton's pay into fixing her up."

Black Widow was almost a lost cause when Barton picked her up. His presence along with a fortune of medicine and training dragged the girl back to this side of sanity.

"I say we train them together. See what happens in two more weeks. Something has to give."

"I agree. Dismissed, Agent." Fury looked over the file one more time before closing it. He returned the document to Phil for safeguarding. Phil stood and nodded, taking his exist. "And don't think I don't know about you recruiting Barton to write greetings cards for your undercover work. He's an agent of death, Coulson."

"He's also the mythical embodiment of love, Sir. I figured it'd be best to get lyrics from the horse's mouth. Besides, none of his card ideas could be used anyway. They ran along the lines of 'Roses are Red, Violets are Blue, I wanna fuck you in a gondola'."

Love sparking fairy, yes. Romantic soul, no.

Hearing Fury cackle was something only agents with level seven clearance were allowed. Phil chuckled along was returned to his own office to make the appropriate arrangements. He'd be back to being Vance by the morning.

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There was something spectacular about mornings. Clint learned this long ago, even before waking at dawn for practice at the circus. Mornings were a magical period of the day, new, bright, and full of promise. Anything was a possibility so early in the day. As a child morning meant he got to spend time alone with the sunrise before his family (most importantly his father) woke. They became a refuge for him again at the circus, a quiet moment of relaxation before the crowds came. In the army mornings were jarred and anything but peaceful but there were still moments after sunrise when the world stopped to breathe. As a SHIELD agent his appreciation for mornings hadn't changed. He went to the range early, before breakfast was and sometimes just sat outside to calm himself.

Morning took on a whole new meaning when Natasha entered his life. For the months she was gone, morning were painful reminders that he went to sleep and woke alone. Now with her here Clint jumped out of bed and into his clothes quick enough to catch fire. Imagine it, a whole day of getting to know his soulmate, of learning what made her happy, and how sarcasm dimpled her cheeks. Mornings weren't a sleepy affair anymore but the gunshot to a horse race.

And then Coulson (bless the man) assigned Clint to combat training with Natasha. Every morning he got to watch her, a vision of beauty with her lush scarlet hair and frame to make any man's mouth go dry and fall at her feet. And he belonged to her! He might not be her soulmate but she was his – his soul was in her chest somewhere (Clint was more than eager to look for it). She owned him completely and Clint was only too happy to accept that.

"Morning, Tosh," Clint chirped as he entered the gym.

As per usual Natasha tracked his movements with a careful expression. Two weeks and three days they'd met like this and Natasha still didn't completely trust him. She might never, not with her history. Clint tried not to let it get to him but the fact still hurt now and again. He was grateful for what he had now.

Another great aspect to waking up in the morning was that the gym had some semblance of privacy. SHIELD's gym was enormous, several different floors with different rooms to train different parts of the body. The place was hallow before sunrise, only one or two other agents boxing each other and one pattering along on a treadmill down the hall.

Each morning Clint and Natasha sparred. Natasha was evaluated to be at a level that would be unfair to introduce to other probationary agents. For this reason she was allowed access to the senior lounge early mornings with Clint's guidance. Clint was only too happy to assist. He didn't even mind that Fury had ulterior motives for the request. When they started out Natasha ignored him and ran on one of the treadmills. Then she stretched and lifted weights. It lasted about an hour before Clint's pestering broke through and the two worked together one-on-one. Clint insisted his stay at medical that afternoon was well worth it.

Since then they'd fallen into a routine, Clint chatting up the mornings as they stretched together, then ran side by side, and ended the session sparing. Natasha loved sparing after work outs because it put their endurance to the test, how much the other could go after already hitting the treadmill, weights, and other fandangled equipment SHIELD insisted was top grade. Clint not so much. He felt like he was back at the military (which in a way he never left since SHIELD was a super-secret branch of the American military). Up and dawn, sweat your weight in gold, get demoralized and potentially killed.

Clint was still crap at hand-to-hand but he was improving - had to with Natasha as a partner.

He swept a palm over his brow, splaying his sweat drenched hair to the side. Clint chuckled at Natasha as she helped him off the floor and he shuffled his feet.

"Natasha, are you human?" Clint asked offended and massaged his jaw. With her work ethic she very well be a demon. Contrary to popular belief they were punctual little bastards.

"I'm not a mutant, if that what you are referring to," Natasha responded, curt as usual.

Mutants were a common subject of late, after the attack on San Francisco. There were rumors of mutant agents in SHIELD or an infiltration. Clint wasn't bothered by the insinuation like some of his colleagues. For starters he was a secret mythical creature and for two he was still the world's best marksman. Who cared if someone could teleport through walls? Clint was awesome!

He grabbed a towel and washed his forehead, then the back of his neck.

"Nah, I meant . . .something more than human, you know?" By her expression Natasha didn't. He leaned against a wall and watched her, some of his confidence slipping. "For example, you could be a vela or some type of deadly Russian fairy."

Natasha started long enough to make him squirm. Then she smirked and slugged his arm. He winced at the bruise that was already there before, thank you very much. Natasha was always in a more talkative mood when hopped up on endorphins from work out.

"That's a joke, yes? You have very child-like humor, Barton. It's endearing. Fairies. Heha."

Clint would have liked the compliment more if he'd actually told a joke.

She was defiantly human then. Clint's kin were unable to correct what they were when being labeled incorrectly. A nymph was not a nix and a thunder bird was not a roc. Clint wasn't sure when in their history it happened but all the magic folk had to admit their heritage when directly asked. It was a type of safeguard for mortals to know what they were dealing with. Shout 'are you a vampire?' into an alley and you'd be surprised by how many voices answered back. Bottom line, Natasha was human which meant she had a soul, which meant in turn Clint was an imbecile who'd somehow lost it.

"What would you be then? An elf?"

Clint's hands with calmly in an instant. The words were out before he could think.

"I'm a cupid."

Natasha barked with laughter this time and Clint felt a stab of shame. He knew he shouldn't take it personally, Natasha didn't know any better, know how big of a deal this was for Clint (she thought they were joking!) but it was hard being laughed at by the love of your life for admitting his species.

"A cupid? Yes I see, with your arrows and chubby cheeks." She pinched the side of his face in what she thought was affection but her touch was like a brand.

This wasn't what it was supposed to feel like, right? These were just special circumstances. Her touch burned because of his emotions, right? Being touched by his soulmate was supposed to be wonderful, he'd thought. Clint had been fantasizing about Natasha's hands on him near four months now, caressing, soothing, kissing away his agitations and fears. In the months she was away, Clint held himself, dreaming of her. Now this. Clint set himself up for disappointment big time.

He held steadfast. If he could survive eight years with an abusive father this was a cake walk.

"And of course no cupid would be complete without a set of tiny wings."

Clint's toes curled but it wasn't from pleasure. His wings shifted against their bindings that kept the appendages pinned to his back and out of the way. They clung to his shoulder blades like they wanted to go back inside his skin, impossible by the way.

He decided a tactical retreat was in order and backed away from Natasha. Her expression soured as she put a fist to her chest. Clint felt desperate, pulled between wanting to make sure Natasha was okay or run away from her. His damn heroics won out.

"You okay? Can you breathe? Natasha?" Clint watched as she pressed around the spot where their string connected.

Oohhh.

This was Clint's fault. Since part of Clint was in her soul it reacted to the rest of Clint who was in emotional agony. Face drained of color, Clint realized what that meant for the weeks he'd been distraught over the Hunts. Did Natasha feel his pain then, to? Was there a range limit? Clint doubted it since he'd been around the world but still connected to Natasha by the string. Clint's distress must have manifested in Natasha like this because he didn't have her soul to balance it out.

Clint would have allowed himself to feel like the worst bastard in the world but none of that would help Natasha. No more self-loathing, he decided. It wasn't worth hurting her.

"Let me help you sit," he encouraged, guiding her to one of the chair situated around the sparing ring. She waved him off.

"It fades soon enough."

Clint huffed at himself and left to fetch her water bottle. When he returned Natasha watched him.

"Are you alright, Barton? You seem ill."

Skin flushed, face pale, sweat soaked and heartbroken, Clint supposed he did look ill. He managed another smile to reassure her.

"Yeah, I'm a little beat. You okay? I think I'm gonna go back to my room."

"Yes, go. Clean and eat." She made a shoeing gesture and drank more water. Clint hesitated then fled.

He didn't make eye contact with any of the just now waking agents as Clint marched to his room. He didn't break from his placid expression until he'd stripped and entered the shower, shucking the bindings on his wings. Clint peered at them in a mirror, fragile little things made of bone and fluff. Touching one, he tried to imagine what it would feel like to have Natasha do that, to massage away his hurt and sooth the feathers back in order. He stretched them both out and sank under the hot spray of the shower.

Natasha was in pain because Clint was. If that was the case the best remedy for them both was for Clint to stop dejecting himself.

Continuing the fantasy, Clint touched himself while imagining Natasha's hands. They were much daintier than Clint's paws, long and knife-like. A pianist's fingers for sure. They'd be gentle and light but know all the right places to dip and pinch. His fingers traced over his skin peppered in bruises of various colors and stages of healing.

Clint leaned back against the shower's wall, taking himself in his too callused hands. Since meeting Natasha Clint hadn't entertained the idea of getting another partner. The thought of kissing someone else, sharing his body with another after his soul belonged to Natasha was taboo without question.

Natasha's hands were petite and perfect. He wondered how may scars she had. Did she have as many bruises as he did? He doubted it, since he could barely get a hit on her when they spared. They way she looked at him some times Clint wanted to yank off his shirt and bare his scars, show her how much he didn't care about anything until he found her.

The fantasy progressed beyond physical. He thought of cuddling up to Natasha, swaying with her in a slow dance, Natasha tucking her head under his chin and leaning up to press 'I love you' into his neck. And damn it, he wanted that. He wanted her to understand what she meant to him so, so desperately.

"I'm a cupid, Natasha," Clint announced to the steam soaked room. He touched the spot he thought of Natasha kissing and squinted his eyes shut. "We're soulmates, only not really. You've got my soul but I lost yours somehow. I'm sorry. I love you." Palm pressed against one of his eyes, Clint tried to control himself. "I'm sorry. I love you."

He shuddered as he came, thinking of her and worshiping her name. Clint wrapped his arms around his shoulders and drenched himself under the spray.

After all that he still had the rest of the day to deal with. Screw that! He was sleeping in tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (500) Days of Summer: Clark Gregg plays a manager of the greeting card company the lead character works at. This is Coulson's current undercover job. Coulson having a hard time separating undercover work from his reality is inspired by and "Ultimate Spider Man" episode where Midtown High School Principal Coulson explains to Fury how he can save the school budget. Fury retorts with, "Coulson's gone native."
> 
> "Music. She loves music." is one of my favorite quotes from "Big Fish" where the lead character works at a carnival without pay to learn about the woman he loves. Once a month the owner tells him something about her. He's so giddy that he doesn't even care that he's doing degrading work to learn that she (like everyone else) loves music. Not even the kind of music, just that she likes it in general. The idea of Clint being just as enamored amuses me.


	5. A Battle of Eyebrows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natasha is unhappy with sitting around at SHIELD and wants to be of use as an Agent. Clint teaches Natasha about archery.

Her heels clicked the tiled floor as Natasha marched her way to the Director’s office. Agents scrambled out of her way, warned off by the icy intensity in her eyes. Just before the door a secretary waved Natasha forward, expression curious. 

“Is there something you need, Agent?” 

Natasha studied the secretary, ink stained fingers but well groomed nails and a desk neater than a hospital. There was even hand sanitizer. The secretary was a grunt, never saw action. Natasha had zero interest in talking with him. A man like this had no influence on SHIELD’s goings on. She doubted he had much of an impact on the Director’s decisions making either. Natasha learned an age ago that confronting the boss one-on-one was best. 

Turning from him, Natasha rapped her knuckles against Fury’s office door. The secretary made an expression like he was going to asphyxiate and waved her away from it. Natasha ignored him and knocked again. 

“The Director is busy, Agent. Do you have a prior appointment?” 

“No,” Natasha replied and knocked again. The secretary winced. 

“I’m going to have to ask you to set up an appointment. Director Fury has important business to attend to –“

“As do I.” 

She knocked again and just as the secretary crossed over to her the door’s lock hummed and cracked open. The door, rather doors (two oblique colored doors made of a type of reinforced metal that must cost a fortune) opened outward. Natasha took a step back, poker face at the ready. Her expression matched Director Fury’s so well that they could be related. The eye brow on his good side rose, her own matching it. 

“Agent Romanoff,” he greeted, deadpan. 

“Director Fury,” she returned, stoic as ever. A grin creased Fury’s expression but it wasn’t a friendly gesture. Nick Fury smiled like a lion bearing its fangs. Natasha offered one in return, a perfect imitation of a cobra. 

“Director I –“ The secretary began but Fury held up a hand to pause him. The other man shrank. 

“Do join me, Romanoff.” Fury gestured her into his lair and Natasha followed without hesitation. Standing tall, Natasha catalogued the office. She noted where the security cameras were hidden, which objects were the most lethal, and what kind of person the Director of SHIELD was based on his decoration. Natasha would never forget the boss who had a live polar bear chained in his room. So far Fury was a man of patriotism and sensibility. A faded Captain America poster hung framed next to a bookshelf, the shelf itself loaded with books in multiple languages. 

Maria Hill was also in Fury’s office, though Natasha suspected she was not a permanent fixture. She stood close to his desk, peering over a folder. When she noticed Natasha, Hill closed it. She was surprised but not unhappy to see Natasha. Hill nodded at Natasha. Although acting calm Natasha could sense amusement about the woman. 

“That will be all Agent Hill,” Fury dismissed as he swept to his desk. Maria nodded again and was out the room in four quick strides, folder with her. Neither Fury nor Natasha looked away from one another. He gestured to a seat across from his desk. Natasha took it without making a sound. 

“Good Agent, Hill. Best of the litter you two were part of at camp, baring you of course.”

“Of course.” 

They returned to watching each other. A clock somewhere behind them counted with noisy fingers. Another frightful grin sloped Fury’s features. 

“Was there a reason for you visit, Agent Romanoff or am I posing for a caricature portrait?” 

“I want to be on the field.”

“That’s something you need to take up with your handler. Don’t know if you noticed but I’m the Director around here. I delegate. Take it up with Coulson.”

“I prefer to talk to the head, not the hands,” Natasha insisted. Fury frowned heavy on one side, like his lip was being yanked down but he said nothing more. It was enough encouragement for Natasha. “I’m collecting dust. I have proper training, I have a go from medical both physical and psychological, and I assure you no one in the field has more life experience in combat than I.  
”  
“Excuse me?” 

“You said it yourself, ‘baring you of course’. You know I am both capable and more than qualified to participate on opts. Why then am I assigned to teaching Barton hand to hand combat?” 

“Something wrong with Barton?”

“Barton is fine. He’s improved since I started training him. Training, however is not my skill set. Am I an agent or a glorified prisoner?” 

Fury eyed Natasha with a scathing look, the intensity of which was not degraded by his only having one eye to scathe with. Any normal agent would be terrified. Natasha held her ground. She came to Fury’s office with a goal in mind. Plus, she’d worked for the things of Fury’s nightmares before joining SHIELD. 

Another handful of minutes and Fury was grinning so feral his teeth showed. “Oh, you I like,” he acknowledged, relaxing into his chair for the first time. Natasha didn’t realize how much tension she’d put into her shoulders until it was gone. 

“You’ve got balls, Romanoff. More than most of the men here. Smarts, too. I’m setting you and Barton on a two-man job tomorrow. You’ll receive the details later tonight. Remember to pack a swimsuit and a toothbrush.”

He touched a panel on his desk and the double doors behind her opened. Natasha nodded to the Director in thanks before marching out the office. The secretary watched her go, mouth agape. Agents she passed along the halls were more frightened than before. Black Widow was smiling. 

:::::::::::::::::::::  
:::::::::::  
::::

Clint was in the middle of a routine from his circus days when Natasha found him. He knew she was happy before Natasha entered the room, a tickle of joy interwoven with pride brushing against Clint’s heart through their connection. The emotion reading was new but to be expected after four months of the bond. It wasn’t like he knew her thoughts or anything invasive like that – just a vague understanding that one would be able to read off of body language alone, only it pulsed from his heart. 

The string however was still at her pointer finger. That fact irritated Clint like a thorn. At least the bond had a stronger attachment. If it were a physical string it’d have to be cut off with all its messy looping knots. 

Clint loosed another arrow as he turned to watch Natasha enter his training slot. Sure enough a THWIXP told him he’d hit the target without looking. He waved at her with two fingers and couldn’t help the smile on his face. He just liked being around her. His heart slowed to a moment of perfect serenity and Clint knew without doubt that he’d never miss a shot as long as she was near. It felt good, like a blast of cold air after running in the sun. 

For once Natasha returned the gesture with a small smile of her own and Clint thought for sure his feet would fly off without him. He felt like he could grab a cloud of the sky and eat it. Even if she never reciprocated his feelings, never let him closer than this, Clint thought it was a fair trade. 

“You’re in a good mood,” he said and notched another arrow. In the time he’d known her, Clint understood Natasha to be a very private person emotionally. He didn’t want to crowd her so he took aim and shot a spinning target out of the air. Natasha said nothing as she moved closer to him, leaned against the railing of the platform they stood on. From the entrance where Natasha came in was flat until where Clint stood, at the crisp of a drop off with targets set up in a post-apocalyptic urban center. It reminded Clint a little too much of his time on the bomb squad in Iraq. 

“We’re getting shipped out tomorrow,” she explained. Clint took half a breath to look at her before shooting a target that darted past a window on a pulley. 

“How’d you manage that? Coulson isn’t back yet from his undercover work.”

Not that he was upset or anything. Clint was a popular person – a showman who reveled in attention. People loved him. He was perfectly fine without his best friend/handler. Yep. Just fine. 

Another target flashed a red light on Clint, indicating that he was about to be sniped (in the case of this course, shot with a paintball and docked massive points. He swiveled around in search of the target aiming at him and shot an arrow through its mechanism. 

“I arranged it with Fury himself.”

“I’m impressed. Took me eight months to work up the nerve to complain at the big man himself. How’d it go?” He notched another arrow and scanned the training area. Just a few more seconds on this test run. . . 

“We’re getting shipped out tomorrow.”

“That well, huh?” Two targets were shot. Ten seconds left. The last one was hiding somewhere. Clint searched. No target yet. No target yet. Damn it, where was that little bastard? 

“I was wondering if you could teach me archery,” Natasha asked, throwing off Clint’s focus like it was a Jenga tower. 

“W-what?” Clint stared and then cursed as a buzzer rang. Time out. The last target was pulled into the air to reset along with all the other husks of targets Clint had shot. The red and white lines were practically gloating at Clint so he shot it down. 

“Nice,” came Natasha’s sarcastic commentary. 

Clint pouted at her. “You threw off my grove.”

“If your grove can be thrown off with a simple question maybe you shouldn’t be in the field,” she challenged back. 

Only it wasn’t a simple question; not to Clint. Archery was pretty much Clint’s identity. He was a pretty sucky human and a worse Cupid but in the area of archery Clint was the world’s finest. He could out shoot, out rank, out aim, and out maneuver anyone. Anne Oakley rolled in her grave and Robin Hood sobbed at his talent. And Natasha wanted to learn it. The question almost felt intimate, like asking how to kiss or give pleasure. 

Clint tapped his forehead to shake off the thoughts. He was being sentimental again. He blamed the stupid tufted wings. They were like carrying a poet on each shoulder. Natasha wanted to learn how he killed. Nothing romantic about that. Although for an assassin it sounded as close as one could get. 

“Why do you want to learn archery? It takes a long time to master and is pretty archaic compared to the weapons you’re used to.” 

“My point exactly.” She crossed her arms at her waist and watched him in the same casual manor he was watching her. Clint smiled again. “I know guns, I know bombs, I know mines, I know grenades, I know rocket launchers, I know piano wire, I know knives, I know weapons whose descriptions would make your stomach turn. I know weapons that were outlawed by the Geneva Convention and weapons that aren’t known even to nightmares. I do not know how to handle a bow and if I am going to work alongside you that is unacceptable. Teach me archery, Clint Barton, so that I may understand you.” 

Clint’s eye brows rose into his hair line and he almost went slack jawed. Okay, yeah, that last line sounded a bit intimate. He yanked on his shirt collar to hide another goofy smile. 

Keep it together, Barton!

“Okay, yeah. No problem. We can start on the basics and when we get back from the mission start aiming at targets.” 

She squinted at him, lips pursed. “No. I need to know everything that I can know before tomorrow. Otherwise there won’t be any point to it.” 

Clint pinched the bridge of his nose. 

“Look, I don’t think you’re hearing me right. It took me months of round the clock training to perform – years to get as good as I am. I’ll teach you stances, breathing techniques, and maybe even let you shoot a target but you’re not going to master it all in one night, no matter how good.” He laughed and jabbed his chest with his thumb. “Trust me, I’m the best.”

Natasha’s returning laugh was mocking as a magpie. Gesturing to the pit behind Clint, she said, “How sure are you that you are the best? You missed at target on your last practice run.” 

“What? That? No, no, I didn’t miss, I didn’t shoot. There’s a difference.”

“Not on the field, while the enemy is getting away.” 

It was Clint’s turn to cross his arms and squint at his partner. 

“Fine, you’re on.” 

He turned to a control panel for the whole room and set it to manual choice. He took a step back and encouraged Natasha to take a look. She frowned but uncrossed her arms to inspect the podium. 

“It’s a direct map of this training room. Just touch the screen to place all twenty four targets. The computer will control the rigging that puts them into place.” 

Natasha murmured something in Russian that could have been astonishment or a curse. Probably both. Russian spies tended to react in anger when impressed. He’d have to ask Natasha to teach him later. Carrying on a conversation in her language sounded like fun.   
“Turn around and close your eyes,” she instructed. 

Clint smiled and did as she asked. He heard the computer’s blips as Natasha touched the screen and the metal rigging groaned as it placed new targets. Clint played with the end of his bow and centered himself. He put Natasha’s presence out of his mind. His breathe slowed and his heartbeat was that of a reptile’s. Worries, annoyances, pleasures of the day drained and left behind a calm not unlike wind over desert sand. 

When Natasha said he could turn around Clint was more than ready. Within seconds he found his first target – under the space between overturned bus and a rock. Clint shot it down. The next was behind a sign post. Clint shot even as he searched for the next one. Arrow after arrow was loosed, Clint breathing with his bow. When all twenty four targets were eliminated Clint spent another ten seconds searching for an enemy out of habit before canceling his archery mind set. Several blinks later and Clint was back to smirking at Natasha. 

“How’s that? Pretty awesome, right?”

Natasha pursed her lips. “You cheated.”

The bottom of Clint’s stomach fell out and his grin twisted into a snarl. “Bull crap! I closed my eyes and everything!”

“A trained operative uses his ears and eyes. You heard the targets as they moved into place; unless you aren’t as well trained as I originally thought.”

Clint swore at her bait, angry with his nostrils flared. He breathed heavy and reined his emotions, shucking it for that perfect clarity as before. Clint closed his eyes, turned around, and started singing “American Pie”. When he heard the rigging move he belted the song, singing so loud his vocal cords protested. 

Natasha tapped his shoulder and Clint sprang into action. This time he hunted the targets with a quick ferocity. The entire session was over in minutes. Clint stood back sniffed at Natasha. See her critique that. 

Her eyes were bright. Natasha nodded at him, a grin at her lips. “You are quite skilled, Barton. I look forward to training.” 

Clint stared for a long while then smiled so big his teeth showed. If he had a tail it’d be wagging. As it was, his wings strained against their bonds in an attempt to flutter. Pride pooled in his gut as Clint encouraged Natasha forward so he could begin teaching her. The basics were something he hadn’t thought about in a long while but he was eager to teach her. 

He guided Natasha into a formal stance, wanting her to get used to that before finding her own style. Clint allowed her to hold his bow, his heart hammering in his chest at the sight. It was heavier than she expected. Clint showed her how to notch an arrow and where to hold it. He moved her arm so that her elbow wouldn’t get cut when she shot. 

“Try to aim like you’re grabbing the target,” he explained. Natasha squinted one eye shut and breathes. When she was ready she loosed the arrow and it sailed across the room to a target that hovered at their height. She hit one of the inner rings but nowhere near the middle. 

Clint whistled even when Natasha’s eyebrows pinched with disappointment. 

“Good start. On my first try I missed the target completely and shot the ass of one of the clowns.” 

Natasha snorted. “That was a miss?”

“Hell yeah! Though the clown didn’t seem to think so.”

As Natasha held out her hand for another arrow Clint noticed how close they were. He could smell the shampoo Natasha used; a blend of cucumber and honey. It was sharp but left a smooth aftertaste. They were close enough that he could count her eyelashes. Natasha was beautiful. Clint would think so even if she wasn’t his soulmate. And he had to admit seeing her shoot with his bow was one of the sexiest things he’d experienced. He stared at her hand and his heart tied into knots as messy as the ones around her pointer finger.

Clint offered her another arrow and focused on teaching her as much as he could before tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Clint worked on the Bomb Squat - another reference to "Hurt Locker"
> 
> Clint singing "American Pie" is a reference to "Love Comes to the Executioner" - another movie Jeremy Renner is in where he sings this song on his way to his death bed. It's worth a watch on youtube.


	6. Dancing with Dingoes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint and Natasha's first mission together. Things heat up.

Waiting for the next morning was a paradox of ‘much too soon’ and ‘why isn’t it here yet?’ Clint felt giddy and anxious all at once and hated every moment of it. He was acting like a new agent on his first op. Clint hadn’t had such mixed feelings about a situation since getting his first SHIELD-issue-bow that replaced his hand-made set from the circus. 

He ended up sleeping all of three hours and drank his weight in coffee to make up for it. Coulson and Natasha met him at the hangar bay. The two were in a professional staring contest; both sides evenly matched. Another agent named Romero hung nearby, dangling a cigarette between two gloved fingers. He waved to Clint as he approached. Clint nodded his head in return.  
“Back from your second life, Sir,” Clint greeted to Coulson. 

“After five hundred days on the job, I was pulled out. Vance is retired,” Coulson returned without breaking contact with Natasha. Clint was too amused by the two for him to question what triggered their scrutiny of each other. From Natasha the cold aggression was expected, but Coulson was typically more tolerant of stares. His undercover op must have been quite straining on the agent to react out of super-spy character. 

“Our mission is in San Diego for a drug lord named César Mendez. His men are smuggling an enhancement drug called ‘Tanium’. It’s addictive, increases a man’s ability by one hundred and twenty percent, and lethal after an approximate fifty doses. Athletes, terrorists, and criminals are getting their hands on it. Mendez will be at the Emerald Plaza for a business party to meet with one of his customers. This team will capture him without being seen. Romero will take his place as a double and take down the trade from the inside over a period of three weeks with assistance from another team.”

Romero nodded and crushed his cigarette below his heel. “You got it.”

Coulson made an expression of disgust. “I expect you to pick that up.” Romero flustered and scooped up the ashes. “Romanoff will do the grab and Barton will cover. We have until 0200 hours pacific time to stop Mendez.”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” Clint encouraged. Flashing an easy smile, he turned to the stoic Black Widow. “You set, Nat?”  
Natasha turned her critical gaze on him and Clint cowered behind a grin. Natasha’s game face was just as frightening as always. Boy, did he love her for it, though. Clint prided himself on being a man of stupid bravery and couldn’t help but be impressed by his soulmate’s ability to make him quake in his boots. He almost missed Coulson’s half-aborted eye roll. 

“Let’s get going. San Diego’s a long way from here and I need time to set up my mask for the double,” Romero said and hiked his gear into the jet. 

Coulson nodded and left to the cockpit without another word to either Clint or Natasha. Romero took co-pilot, leaving the other two sandwiched in the back with their gear. Natasha crossed her arms and legs with the elegance of a swan as Clint flopped down in a heap. He wasn’t quite on the clock yet so he didn’t need to employ any stealthy assassin superspy techniques. This time he saw both Natasha and Coulson’s eye rolls clear as day. He smirked at both. As soon as the roar of the jet leveled off, Clint nudged his partner.  
“What’d you and Coulson talk about? You looked pretty steamed.” 

Natasha grinned like a shark, which was never a good sign. Amusement flowed through their connection, though and it had Clint grinning. Well that was cool. Nat looked mad but his heart was telling him she wasn’t angry. Clint felt very sorry for any man who didn’t have a soulmate. Must be quite confusing otherwise. 

“Coulson implied you have a delicate emotional constitution.”

Clint laughed, slack-jawed. “He what?” 

“Our handler seems to think I am an inelegant heartbreaker who will ruin your happiness and work productivity forevermore.”  
“Nothing against Coulson but Phil doesn’t know shit.” Clint crossed his arms and looked at her from under his eyelashes. “You’re quite elegant.”

Natasha cackled and smirked with pride. Oh yes. If she did break his heart, Clint was sure it would be as spectacular as a shattering chandelier. He made a note to ask Coulson about it later. The other agent rarely pried into personal matters as long as they didn’t affect work performance. For now, he curled up against Natasha with the excuse of not having any room in the push and pull of flight. Natasha watched him for a moment but allowed his presence, something that made Clint’s heart start a jazz number. Through the flight one of his feet ended up curled between and around one of hers but Natasha didn’t mind. 

At that moment, several thousand feet above the ground with air screaming by the collapsible door they sat next to, and the ongoing growl of the plane’s engine, Clint wanted to kiss her. Clint wanted to kiss Natasha. He wanted to grab her chin and plant one on those lush red lips. He wanted to press a soft one to her forehead. He wanted to pepper hickeies down her neck and bite skin where no one else was supposed to look. He wanted to explore Natasha with his lips and learn the places that would make her blush. Fingers through her hair, leg between her thighs, tongue in her mouth, hands cupping perfect porcelain flesh. Clint couldn’t remember wanting someone so much, even as a teenager. He was made for her. Property of Natasha Romanoff was written on his iris, tattooed across his heart. Clint would bet if someone took his blood to a microscope they’d find an ‘if found, please return’ notice on each cell. 

Clint balled his hands into fists and thought about his training from the basics up to an Olympian level to cool himself. Inches away and Clint couldn’t do a thing to Natasha. Not yet; maybe never. She eyed him and Clint just nodded, holding his shoulders close so he wasn’t pressed so much against her. They said nothing else till arriving at San Diego.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::

Not being able to use his bow wasn’t even the worst part of the mission. The bow was too cumbersome and obvious for a stealth mission. Clint wandered the dance floor of the exclusive party in the Emerald Plaza. Although a dirtbag drug lord, Mendez was the classy type who ventured into ritzy parties. Clint’s full suit was stuffy and a little too reminiscent of James bond. Being without his bow was making Clint twitchy, even if he did have a classy Berretta in his side pocket. Its weight felt heavy and unnatural to him, as all weapons aside from a bow did. 

The worst part wasn’t the long security check upon entry that separated Clint from his mark. That part of the mission had actually gone well with a seamless play on the guards, his gun just out of sight and reach to them and their metal detectors. Thank you Orlando, the Magician from back home. He caught back up with his mark as soon as he entered the party center, Mendez relaxing at a private booth while other wealthy guests danced. 

Being flagged down by a cougar past her prime and fluttering into turkey years wasn’t the worst part either, even if he came away smelling of prune-scented perfume. He scrambled out of sight with a feigned threat that he had too much to drink and was about to meet his insides. 

The worst part wasn’t the live band who played like the dying and it certainly wasn’t those adorable shrimp cakes – because he definitely needed more of those, oh my gosh, bring that platter back here. 

No, the worst part was watching his soulmate dance, flirt, joke, and even kiss the drug lord. Oh, if only he had his bow. Clint mapped out the spots on César Mendez’s body that would trigger the worst death. He knew right where to aim, how deep or shallow the blood loss would be and even estimated how many shots he could get in before security grabbed him and SHIELD dismissed him. 

‘Hawkeye, ease up on your distance. Mingle a little,’ Coulson said over their radio. Coulson himself was in their own SHIELD assigned suit, watching from security footage. His voice kept Clint grounded as he patrolled. Also, Clint liked his life at SHIELD very much, thank you. He wouldn’t compromise the mission even if he really, really wanted to. 

“I ‘ave never been to San Diego,” Natasha said to Mendez upon meeting him. She exaggerated her accent and her smile to almost plastic proportions. Clint hated it but Mendez was staring with a salty, lecherous gaze. He scrutinized her breasts, on display in the red dress she’d picked out herself for the mission. Clint supposed he hated the look because he knew Natasha was essentially wearing a mask. A steady, calculating sensation pulsed through their connection even as Natasha’s face pulled into an exaggerated laugh. In all honesty it was creepy to him. 

Mendez himself could have been Romero’s brother even without make up. They bore the same square shoulders, stubby fingers, and same half-hop gait (though Clint suspected Romero had taken notes on that one). Even without IMF’s standard of remarkable masks, Romero would make a seamless double. Clint was able to tell the two apart in an instant. Their strings were very different. Romero had a cute little bubblegum pink string around his pinky that looked like it’d been developing for awhile. Mendez’s string was mossy-brown and rotting. 

The string was falling apart from where it connected around his middle finger, twisting and bubbling with a violent pulse. Clint hated rotting strings. They polluted everything around them, strings jetting aside to get away. Rotting strings happened when a relationship turned abusive. Physical abuse, emotional abuse, stalking, Stockholm syndrome, or any kind of relationship that hurt one or both of the bonded pair rotted. Sometimes they rotted all the way through and sometimes they healed. Most of the time it stayed there, poisoning the pair and infecting everyone they came in contact with. 

Clint forced himself to stay in the room as his soulmate drew near the venom. 

For now, Romero waited in a suite close to Mendez’s, perfecting his role for when the switch was made. All the team had to do now was to wait for Natasha to lead their target to his room. 

The fact that Natasha was bait made Clint’s skin crawl. He’d much rather they be on the streets in a shoot-out than this vile seduction. Natasha suited a very specific skill set, one she’d employed for years. She was good at it, too. Clint had to acknowledge a professional at work. Clint half-wished Mendez swung the other way so that he or Coulson could do the job for her. Clint made another note to bother Fury into assigning Natasha less gender-specific missions. Even if he continued giving Natasha these ones, Clint didn’t want to go on them with her. This was awful. 

“Dance with me, will you?” Her lips caressed Mendez’s ear, voice silken as a French noir femme fetal. He grinned, a flash of cigar-stained teeth. Natasha’s smile arched like her pale neck and she somehow managed to blush. Damn, that woman had control of her body, something Clint clearly did not as he spilled wine over himself. Dabbing a napkin over his ruined breast coat and swallowing a curse, Clint just about jumped when Natasha appeared in front of him. 

Her hips swayed to one side, perfect ruby painted nails caressing her waist as she watched him. Their string, still tied to her pointer finger-caught his attention. It undulated with shades of red. She pursed her lips pursed held out a hand for Clint to grasp.  
“Barton, dance with me and make it intimate. Mendez rejected me.”

It took his lagging brain several seconds to remember what a Mendez was. Try as he, might he couldn’t fathom why anyone would turn down Natasha. He supposed Mendez wasn’t into Russians or redheads or a woman with a rockin’ body. Clint had half a mind to radio Coulson and ask if he knew for sure Mendez wasn’t gay. Natasha was radiant and delectable, her pink tongue flirting across her lips, dark emerald eyes to match the Plaza’s name sake. Clint’s skin buzzed where she touched him. By the time he was back to himself, they were already on the dance floor, her hands around his waist, nips at his throat then his ear. 

“Make a show, Barton. We need Mendez’s attention.” 

She laughed like bubbling champagne and they started to move. It was weird and wrong because it was fake but Clint’s body responded in perfect synchrony, unabashed by letting her lead where they swayed or when they dipped. She was so close and perfect, moving with the ease of a dancer, which he realized with a sweaty gulp was exactly what she was. Powerful leg muscles pressed against him, Clint helpless to follow her as they spun around the floor, her heels clipping the ground as Clint’s dragged his feet along. 

He wondered if Mendez was watching – if anyone was. He was sure they must be the spectacle of the dance floor but Clint couldn’t see beyond Natasha, his soulmate taking his complete focus. 

“Keep it up,” Natasha husked to his ear, making Clint’s knees weak. “Mendez looks interested.” 

She guided him into an impossibly close dance, one leg between his thighs. A feverish tremor ran through his body from ear tips to toes, his wings shaking against their binding. Clint couldn’t identify if it was a good tremor or a bad one. Either way, Natasha milked another from him as she kissed a stripe down his chin to shoulder, nipping at the skin. Clint thought that his heart might have stopped. 

An intruder interrupted with a quick tap to Natasha’s shoulder, the woman flashing her now heated gaze on the man then to Mendez, who the lackey pointed to. Her lips curled. 

“So sorry to leave you but I have bigger fish to catch,” Natasha said to Clint, a pout to her voice. She traced a delicate finger up his chest to his heart, dragging her string to the exact spot where his connected. Clint would have sworn Natasha could see it when she smiled at him with a minx-like grin for the act (it was all an act). 

“Maybe next time,” she winked. After another peck to his jaw, Natasha was following Mendez’s man back to the drug lord himself, Natasha’s hips swaying in a way that had Clint reeling. He had no trouble whatsoever acting lust starved in her absence. Clint cut through the crowd for some punch to cool off. 

The punch was tacky and alcoholic and burned down Clint’s throat when he downed it. He ordered another glass. 

Clint’s stomach turned when he spotted Natasha next. She danced with Mendez in the same intimate waltz as with Clint moments ago. Her hips pressed against his, Mendez’s paws slung over her rump, Natasha’s head tossed back with the skin of her neck glistening. Their string and Mendez’s ugly rotting one were close enough for Clint’s knees to buckle. Over the radio Clint heard their exchange of flirts and compliments, her appreciation for a man with power, and his admiration of her body. Clint counted all the purses in the room then moved onto the number of toupees. It was a trick from his circus days when nerves and patience were fried by an unruly audience.

It wasn’t working. 

Natasha was his soulmate, damn it. He wasn’t hers but that didn’t mean Clint wanted to share; especially with filth like Mendez.  
They kissed and Clint choked on his drink. Taking that as an excuse to turn away, Clint coughed with a sleeve to his mouth. 

Passersby stared, their noses turned up at the scent of alcohol. 

‘Will you show me around? Personally?’ Natasha asked Mendez. Clint squinted his eyes shut. 

‘I can spare a few moments,’ he purred, leading Natasha to a dark alcove. She smiled at him saucily. 

‘Why not your room?’ She nipped Mendez’s ear and the drug lord jerked with a glassy expression. ‘I tend to get loud.’

Mendez swore in Spanish and groped Natasha’s ass. Clint pinched the bridge of his nose and tapped his feet so he wouldn’t rush the drug lord. 

‘Widow’s on the move,’ Coulson said over their radio, his voice like ice to Clint. It was a nice, jarring wake up. ‘Double, get into position. Hawkeye, be on guard.’

“Like you have to tell me,” Clint grumbled and trailed after the pair. Mendez’s man was following, scouting for trouble. Clint took another hearty drink of alcohol and let a parody of drunkenness take over. A wobbling drunk was much less threatening than a sour-faced man in a suit. The hotel security eyed him as he passed and Clint nodded to them with an enthusiastic smile. 

“Great party ossicfers! Whoo!” 

He stumbled at the door frame and clung to the wall. Both guards stared and one came to help Clint upright. 

“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to leave if you can’t control yourself.” 

Clint laughed in his face. “Was leavin’ anyway. M’need some help upstairs though. M’my room’s . . .floor seven? Somethin’ like that.”  
‘Floor Seven, room 522,’ Coulson reminded. Clint held back his ‘I know Phil; it’s called acting’. 

Grimacing, the guard led Clint to a bellhop who escorted Clint to an elevator. Natasha and Mendez were already on their way up. His skin crawled at the thought of what that loathsome man was doing to her. At the floor in question, Clint caught sight of Natasha dragging Mendez by his shirt collar into his suite. Moments from now, she would incapacitate him and switch Romero. Mendez’s man waited outside the suite, eying Clint as the bellhop helped him to SHIELD’s current team base, room 522.

“Thanggzks. ‘M’good,” Clint waved the bellhop away with a twenty dollar bill. Smirking, the bellhop accepted the exchange and hurried off. Clint used his key card to get into the room. As soon as the door shut, his facade fell and Clint was sober. 

“Hawkeye in 522, getting bag now.” Clint crossed the room, filled with their equipment and dragged out a long bag with ‘Elephant’s Knot Forget Laundry’ written across it. There was even an insignia of an elephant with its trunk tied into several knots. 

Clint looked over his shoulder as Romero exited the bathroom, looking the spitting perfect image of Mendez down to his coat and facial hair. His string however was pink and pure. Mendez didn’t look quite so horrible with a good bond. Romero grinned at him, flashing teeth the same way the drug lord did. 

“Double, ready for duty,” Romero said, voice dark and pitched in mimic of Mendez. At this point there wasn’t much of Romero left. Clint dragged the laundry bag over and helped Romero into it, zipping the man inside for transport.

‘Black Widow, target is KO’ed,’ Natasha said without effort. She’d taken Mendez down easy. Her natural accent was still in effect even if she was wearing the SHIELD Agent persona. Clint supposed if he was in Russia he’d be speaking with his own accent after knocking out a target. 

There was a rap at the door that had to have come from Coulson. Clint picked up his drunken guise again and hobbled to the door. Coulson in service attire greeted him. 

“Sorry to disturb you, Sir. We received a call earlier that a maid left her laundry bag here.” He dipped his head and offered an apologetic smile. Coulson had to have been a theater major before becoming a professional badass. 

“’Bout time ye’showed up.” Clint stepped back and beckoned Coulson in. Coulson shut the door quick to keep the prying eyes of Mendez’s man opposite their room from peeking in. Both men grabbed onto either side of the bag Romero was in and lifted him to the door. Clint placed him down and got sloppy drunk again as Coulson opened the door. 

“Our apologies, Sir. Breakfast in the morning will be free of charge.” He dipped his head again and Clint held back a scoff. Breakfast in the morning would mean nothing to a person who was actually as drunk as Clint acted. Seemed even Hotel Service Coulson was still a sneaky bastard as ever. 

“Thangzks,” he answered and shut the door. He unraveled the persona again and went back to Special Agent mode. All these changes were giving him whiplash. No wonder Coulson had trouble distancing himself from a character. Clint checked his gun as he waited for the next stage in the plan. 

Scratching his chin, Clint peered out the window to San Diego below. His view was away from the beach, overlooking an even city grid and mountains in the distance. Not much in the way of cover if things went south. Quiet, sleepy cities made Clint nervous in the way bustling ones never did. Peaceful cities meant people took notice when fights broke out. 

‘Black Widow, switch ready.’ Clint pushed back from the window. 

‘Handler, ready.’

“Hawkeye, moving into position.” 

He grabbed one of the vodka bottles they had waiting for his upcoming performance. He splashed his neck with some of it like cologne and strutted back out the room with the vodka in hand. Clint hated this. He really did. Acting for the circus was one thing but Clint didn’t like espionage. He was a point and shoot guy. All the frivolity in double roles and trickery was much more IMF standards. It’d be nice to be part of a team who fought bad guys out in the open. 

Clint wobbled down the hallway, leaning a great deal on one of the walls for support. He giggled under his breath as he passed Mendez’s man. As expected, he stared at Clint and forgot Coulson altogether, who peddled a service tray to Mendez’s suite from the opposite direction. Coulson made a fluttering gesture that would have looked like a yawn if Clint wasn’t waiting for it.  
“Hey, don’ I know you?” Clint slurred to the goon. 

“Walk away, gringo,” the guy warned him. Clint wasn’t intimidated in the slightest. Giant thugs like this were easy to take down, as he’d learned from fighting ‘The World’s Strongest Man’ back home in the circus. It helped that the guy’s string was a pale yellow tragedy attached to his pointer finger. As far as love life went, this guy was worse off than Clint.

“No, no, I know you!” Clint beamed and pointed at him. “Juan, right? Juan Batista from San Pasqual, right?” 

“Look, get out of here before I do something you’d regret.” The newly dubbed Juan stood tall and intimidating. He cracked his knuckles for extra measure. Seriously? Couldn’t bad guys get some creativity? Clint supposed if he’d done as many drugs as his opponent, he wouldn’t have much creativity to spare either. 

Coulson moved into position, swiped a key card, and slipped into the suite as Clint blabbered at Juan. 

“You know, we dated the same girl for awhile, yeah? Tha’ skinny one – Carina.”

“Look, I don’t know anything about any Carina but I do know how to hand your ass to you if you take one step closer.” 

“Phhft. You’re no fun anymore, Juan.” Clint leaned against another wall and smiled up at the thug. 

‘Handler, Double made switch and is online. Target ready for transport.’ Coulson said over the radio. 

Knowing he was going to be very sore later, Clint leaned into Juan for a hug. As expected, Juan shoved Clint against a wall and punched him in the gut. Clint prepared his abs for the hit but it still hurt like hell. This was one of the reasons he hated ground work; so messy. To add to the mess, he dropped the vodka bottle and the thug trampled it as he went after Clint, vodka and glass coating the carpet. 

Okay, things just got a little dangerous with the glass. 

In all the commotion, Coulson edged out of the suite with the laundry bag in tow, Mendez switched with Romero. Coulson put the bag in the laundry section of his service cart and started peddling away when one of the wheels squeaked. Juan paused his punches and Clint lowered his hands a smidge from where he was prepared to intercept the fists. Coulson peeked over his shoulder.  
“Didn’t see nothing,” he lied. 

“You bet you didn’ – else I will cut you, white boy,” the thug threatened. Coulson nodded, pulling on a mask of worry as he hurried away. Clint almost laughed again. He’d seen Coulson strangle a man with his own shoelaces. There was no way in hell he was afraid of this bozo. 

Juan punched Clint once more and shoved him away. “Get out of my face.” 

Clint nodded and held his nose like it’d been broken. It wasn’t but faking a break never hurt when you were trying to escape. Better to let the thug think he’d really hurt him than pursue Clint to do just that. 

He staggered his way to the elevator then down three floors to meet up with Coulson in another room. On the way down, a lip locked couple stopped scrutinizing each other’s tonsils long enough to both recognize the elevator doors where open and seek out another when they spotted Clint. Shit wasted and bruised, he must have been a sight. The happy couple skidded away, the fuchsia string binding their middle-fingers wound close between their joined hands. Clint chuckled and heaved himself out of the elevator and down the hall when he came to his stop. 

“You’re running late, Hawk,” Coulson said in greeting when Clint clambered into the room. 

“Well excuse me, Princess,” Clint shot back and headed straight for the bed. Coulson sighed at him and unzipped the bag with Mendez, checking his vitals and administering a light anesthetic just to be safe. Mendez made no sound as his tongue lolled.  
“Sir, can I ask you something off the books?” Clint asked after muting his inner ear communicator. Coulson’s gazed flicked over to him as he worked. 

“I’d rather you didn’t,” he answered but muted his own communicator. 

“What’s your deal with Natasha?”

“You want to go over that now?”

Clint shrugged. “No time like the present, huh?” 

Coulson fixed him with a stare but after discovering Natasha as a soulmate Clint found himself immune to just about anything but Fury’s one-eyed glower. “There was an incident at Vance’s work.” Vance’s work meaning Coulson’s recent undercover life. Coulson waved Clint off the bed and he helped the man fix Mendez into one of the biggest travel bags Clint had ever seen. “There was a girl who had almost the same personality as Agent Romanoff. Independent, strong-willed, unique, and beautiful enough to turn heads.”  
Clint grinned at the compliment of his soulmate. In that moment, he felt a surge of pride that he was lucky enough to be connected to her. 

“She and one of the other workers started dating and it was perfect. Work productivity for both shot through the roof and we got some of the best sales ever from Tom’s greeting’s cards.” 

Mendez properly cared for, Coulson changed from his service wear into boring, normal, everyday man clothes. His Hawaiian t-shirt made Clint chuckle.

“Then they broke up, Tom got depressed enough that I had to change him to the grief section before he went on a shouting rant in the middle of one of our meetings and scared a good third of the company into quitting. In any case, being in love with a woman like Summer – like Agent Romanoff – was not good for the boy or anyone around him.”

“Gee, Phil. When you take a swing, you really take a swing.” Clint crossed his arms and leaned against a wall as he changed into civvies. He still reeked of alcohol but he’d be even less noticed as a street urchin. To be honest, he felt a little buzzed. Not drunk but certainly affected by the alcohol of the night. 

Coulson rolled his eyes again. “You asked and I gave you my honest opinion. Agent Romanoff is no good for you.”

“You know what, fuck you, Phil.” He got the same stare from earlier. “Sorry, fuck you, Sir. Natasha’s my soulmate. I didn’t just pick her out of the bargain bin; she was put together with half my soul in her. I don’t care if she’s bitchy, or cold, or doesn’t even like me, I lo—“ 

Clint caught himself and shut his mouth, shoulders slumping with embarrassment. Coulson watched, glare replaced with a sympathetic expression. Well fuck that too, Clint didn’t need his pity even if Natasha never returned an iota of the affection Clint had for her. He was hers, and he didn’t like Coulson or anyone talking ill of her. 

‘Black Widow. Double is in place. Leaving room now.’ 

Natasha’s voice over both their communicators was as haunting as an owl in the dark. Coulson and Clint shared another scrutinizing look before his handler waved Clint out of the room. 

‘Handler, rendezvous as determined.’

Clint sighed again and forced himself out of the room, down the elevator to floor number five where he took the stairs and walked the rest of the way out. Get the team nice and scrambled before leaving the scene at different times. Spy 101, right? Dumb, unnecessary detailing decided by tech strategists who’d never been in the field in Clint’s opinion. His jaw stung and Clint wanted to get his wings out of their restraints. They were chafing like crazy. A nice long, shower would also do. Clint was partial to cold showers since his time in the army; made him feel invigorated and new, like all the sin washed away with the dirt and blood.

After watching his soulmate sleaze with another man, Clint could use a shower like that. 

He kept walking, hiking his purple hoody up and over his head as he forced one foot in front of the other. Clint passed the glow of the Emerald Plaza and other equally shimmering towers. He passed hotel after hotel, the air sweetened by smog, palm trees, and the whispering beach. 

It wasn’t the color of the charcoal colored car that caught his attention or even the fact it drove close to him. His string shot into the car, through the door as Natasha pulled alongside him. Natasha rolled down the window and grinned at him. She wore a black wig and sunglasses. At night. Clint didn’t know how things in Russia went but he’d have to teach her the difference between looking like an American and acting like one. Amusement danced along their connection and Clint knew it was the first real emotion she’d worn all night. That was enough to spike his mood again. He opened the car door and slid in, pulling the hoody down as Natasha drove.  
Clint’s first glance was to her right hand – still pointer finger – second to her attire. She wore a conservative dress Clint liked better on her than the red eyesore. Natasha was damn sexy without needing to overemphasize it. Their dance earlier was a little too reminiscent of Jessica Rabbit for Clint’s tastes. He liked his girls badass, which he’d lucked out on with Natasha in her natural state. 

Take that Coulson.

“So Miss Sunglasses-At-Night, ready for our date?” The reference sailed right over her. Natasha bit several words at him in Russian. They felt like beestings. 

“What?” 

“I said you smell like a yak and cheap drink.” Clint spluttered with laughter. She changed lanes without much of a signal and twisted a smile on her lips when the driver behind them honked. Natasha was an aggressive driver. He should have guessed. 

“Remind me before we leave to buy good vodka. If that reek is what you drink I’ve much to teach you.” 

Clint leaned his elbow on the armrest and put his palm to his chin, smiling around his fingers. 

“Wouldn’t mind you teaching me Russian.”

It sounded pretty from her, the short syllabus and strong words. Whenever she spoke her native language, Clint couldn’t help but think of the woman who only spoke Yiddish at the circus and painted guests in Cubism, hard lines and angles. Natasha laughed. It was a little mocking to be honest but Clint was getting used to her bitter humor. Dark chocolate was healthier than milk, right?

“Very well, but you must teach me something in return.”

“Always favors with you, isn’t it?”

“That is how the world works.” 

He couldn’t deny that. “Alright. What do you want to learn? After archery, I don’t really have any skills to teach. I’m pretty good at beer pong but –”

“Why do you look at my hands?” Her seven word interruption derailed Clint’s thoughts. Sitting straighter, he was half tempted to open the car door and roll out like he was in an action film and Natasha voice-activated a bomb. Natasha drove too fast for that to be an option with any serious consideration. 

“What?” Plan ‘Play Dumb’ was a go!

Natasha pursed her lips and shifted lanes again so fast that Clint was jarred in his seat, slamming his funny bone into the door – which wasn’t funny at all. 

“My hands, Hawkeye. Every man looks in one of two places when they see me, my breasts or my eyes. You, on the other hand, look at my right hand. Always my right hand. It does not matter if it’s on my hips, crossed over my chest, holding a weapon, or holding silverware, you always look at that first.” 

Craaaap. Mission abort, abort. The option of jumping out the door was looking better and better. This was neither the time nor the place Clint wanted to have this conversation at all. He was done. Sayonara. Clint Barton was out of commission because he’d rather not tell his very human soulmate he was a pixie while they drove at dangerous speeds and he smelled like the dirty side of a barstool.

“Your hands are pretty,” he supplied. She arched an eyebrow at him. Keep going, Barton. “Really pretty. Good piano fingers, I’d say. Do you play?”

“Why my right hand?” She persisted. 

“Umm, because – because you’re right-handed and it makes me think about how horrible it is to grow up a lefty in a right-handed world. You know my hand dominance is an insult to most of the world? And cars are bad because my instinct is to swerve left – careening into oncoming traffic. And you can forget about ever writing comfortably with a spiral note book.”

The look Natasha gave him let Clint know she was not appeased by his dust cloud distraction. 

‘You guys know you forgot to mute the communication?’ Romero reminded over the radio with a laugh. Clint dropped his face into his palms. ‘Besides there’s only one reason a man stares at a woman’s hands that much.’

“Thank you, peanut gallery. That will be all,” Clint snipped back. 

‘Black Widow and Hawkeye, are you on route for rendezvous?’ Coulson asked as Clint muted his communicator. 

“As scheduled. Has the double’s backup team arrived yet?” Natasha stared ahead as she waited for Coulson’s response. Clint stared out the window and had his arms crossed in a petulant pout. At least the hand question had been solved. 

‘Yes. The second team has already taken over. The package has been taken into custody. I’m at the rendezvous waiting pickup.’  
“ETA twenty minutes,” Natasha said and muted her communicator before taking a quick glance at Clint. 

“I know how to repay your debt now.”

“Hmm? What debt?” Clint watched her from the shadowed reflection in his window. 

“The one I owe you for saving my life.”

Clint shook his head. “No payment necessary. Take that as a freebie.”

“Impossible. The world does not work that way.” Natasha took an exit from the freeway that took them down a dark and honest to god abandoned road. Clint sat up again and looked around. This was not the rendezvous point. 

“Then you paid me back when you ate lunch with me last week. What are we doing here?” 

The seatbelt hissed as Natasha unbuckled it and crossed to sit on Clint. His pulse jumped and his eyes flew open wide.  
“Nat? What are you doin’?”

She didn’t answer, posed a coy smirk and unbuckled his seatbelt. Clint started to move when she pinned him with a hand and her lips caressed his. Clint’s heart rose up to his throat. Blood thundered in his ears. His toes even curled and a simple lip smack had never done that before. Everything was absolutely perfect, the smooth gleam of her bright lips, the peppermint breath she gave him as they exchanged air, her knife-like fingers pinching the skin at the nape of his neck. Clint brushed shoulders with perfection. This was what a kiss was supposed to be like, his soul connecting with its other half. 

Then he got an emotion along their string, like the first drop of rain for an upcoming storm that managed to land smack-dab in the middle of his forehead. Natasha’s inner cool was still just as frosty and guarded as when she was kissing Mendez. Clint broke away in horror like he’d been swimming in a pool with a dead body. Confusion from the string tapped at Clint’s heart but he steeled himself and shoved Natasha off enough for him to open the car door and escape. 

He leaned against the trunk, flushed skin seizing in the cool air. Clint breathed and itched for his bow. Moments later Natasha followed him out, managing to look insulted and apologetic all at once. He scrubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms. 

“I do not understand,” Natasha began and Clint laughed. Neither did he. “I see the way your body reacts to mine. I feel your eyes on me whenever we are in the same room.” Her words were clipped and awkward, struggling to remember English. Natasha didn’t hold herself or slouch like Clint was but goosebumps dotted her skin. Clint decided to go with what his heart was tapping out to him in Morse code. 

“I’m not a one-night stand kind of guy, Natasha.” Without thinking he reached out his hand to touch her cheek. Natasha allowed it, though her sharp eyes were dangerous with emotion. “Yeah, I like you but I’m not going to sleep with you if it means you just walk out before morning. I don’t like that. I can’t do that.” 

Not with you, he thought. Sex had never been that big of a deal with Clint but the thought of giving Natasha everything while she was still at a pointer finger in terms of affection made him ill. It would be like expecting marriage from a person on the street. 

Natasha moved her face away from his hands with an unhappy sniff. Although mollified, Clint’s response did nothing for her temper. “It was just a kiss, Hawkeye.” 

“That too, then. Don’t want it.” He crossed his arms. Clint really did want it, already starving for that original connection again but he couldn’t do it if it didn’t mean anything to her. 

Natasha stared at him like he’d grown a tail. His wings shifted but they were still bound. “How long have you been an agent, Hawkeye?”

“Joined the army when I was eighteen, SHIELD when I was twenty seven.” 

“That should be long enough for you to stop believing in fairytales.” Clint’s heart wobbled again. What the hell did Natasha know about fairytales? From his spot, it looked like squat, since she’d been staring a Cupid in the eye for months now. 

“Excuse me?”

“Fairytales, Barton. Love. You seem to be holding out for something that isn’t real.” 

Clint didn’t get angry. He didn’t correct her, even though Clint was the embodiment of what Natasha denied. In that moment, he caught a glimpse of the same fragile girl he’d seen down his scope, violent and angry at the world that’d corrupted her. Clint pushed off the car and climbed back into the passenger’s seat. Natasha didn’t believe in love and if there was one thing Clint knew for certain was that you couldn’t force belief on mortals. He couldn’t make love; he could only point out the way. 

Natasha got back into the car and stared at him before turning the key in the ignition. They continued the rest of the way to the rendezvous in silence. Coulson waved at them from the doughnut shop parking lot and climbed into the car with a smile. It faltered when he noticed the emotion in the car. He passed glazed doughnuts to the front and as Natasha reached for them Clint noticed her hand again. 

The string had moved to her middle finger. Physical affection. He pretended to be enthused with his doughnut for cover because he was bursting with giddiness. The string moved. It moved! Natasha didn’t believe in love but her affection for him had grown. Sure, it was just physical but progress was progress. If the string could move from the pointer to the middle, that meant that it could move to her pinky and maybe even her ring finger. 

There was hope. They had hope. Each breath came easier to Clint than it had in months and he was smiling at Natasha again. Utterly confused, Natasha’s eyebrows pinched as a tiny, honest smile tugged at her lips. Clint fiddled with the radio till he found a nice peppy song to cover his own need to hum and sing. He munched on his doughnut, so giddy he didn’t care about the crumbs getting everywhere. 

Coulson obviously did. He watched the two and shook his head, passing a napkin along to Clint with a forceful tap to the archer’s shoulder. Clint rolled his eyes and wiped his mouth. The napkin came away smeared with lipstick. He glanced sideways at Natasha at the same time she was glancing at him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOTES:
> 
> Coulson's undercover job, five hundred days in the field as Vance, the reason Coulson is weary of Natasha - reference to "(500) Days of Summer"
> 
> Orlando the Magician - reference to a role Jeremy Renner is cast as in an upcoming production "Low Life" by James Gray
> 
> Natasha picking Clint off the side of the road, her black-haired wig - reference to how Clint and Natasha first met in the comic-verse
> 
> SPECIAL THANKS TO MY BETA, the lovely Leila Winters


	7. A Collection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Several missions together, through success and failure.

Their second mission went much more to Clint's liking. They were in and out of New York so fast, Clint had no chance to check what shows were playing on Broadway. One arrow and Natasha's expert interrogation skills was all that was necessary to learn the serial bomb-maker's plan and make sure he'd never plan another. Missions three and four progressed likewise. They were simple, easy milk-runs in well-established cities that assured plumbing and a good meal. They even had wifi – which Clint didn't use because they were undercover and supposed to be untraceable. After each mission, Clint counted the number on his fingers and showed them to Natasha. She rolled her eyes at him and copied the gesture.

Mission number five was in Cambodia. Temperature-wise it wasn't that bad but with the humidity, Clint felt like he was swimming. Natasha's hair frizzed like a monster and Clint endured the sweat in his eyes as he lined up for his shot. At the end of that mission, Clint gave Natasha a high-five. Startled by the gesture, Natasha took a huge step back and glared like he'd tossed of bucket of water on her.

"It means congratulations," Clint cackled. He held his hands up in mock surrender as Natasha slugged his arm.

"I know that much, Clint."

He was exhausted and sweatier than a Finnish sauna but one of the biggest smiles of Clint's life bloomed. She'd called him Clint. That was a first.

Six and seven were twin missions, taking out cartel brothers who operated on opposite sides of the Pacific Ocean. Weather was getting colder in the Autumn months. Clint was thankful for the Mediterranean weather.

Mission number eight had the potential to be fun but wound up an awful number because they went undercover on a cruise ship. Natasha, it turned out, got seasick. None of the tablets they gave her worked and Coulson couldn't give her anything stronger because a drowsy agent was of no use. Clint argued an agent who couldn't get out of the bathroom was no good, either. Clint helped her long hair back and wrapped it into a safe bun. By the end of the mission it was so frizzy and falling apart that the bun resembled a fuzzy tarantula. Natasha fought him away as he soothed her back. She didn't want to be touched and told him so. Clint shrugged and sat, waiting for her permission to return to her side as he focused on their string and tried to force his calm through it. The only clock in the bathroom was broken. Clint was unsure of how much time passed but it had to have been several hours. Natasha's arms shook and her knees collapsed on herself. Clint fought himself back from picking her up. She caught herself at the last moment, hand on the counter. In the next, Natasha was in his lap, face pressed to his chest as her fingers twitched and her spine writhed.

"Shh, shh, it's okay," Clint cooed, tracing her face with a cool hand. Her skin was drenched with sweat and pale enough to see the spider-web of veins in her wrists and face. Still holding her, Clint maneuvered himself to wet a cloth and scrub away the filth that collected to her skin. He kept his movements slow, trying to be as quiet as he could in the narrow water closet that was too small for his bulky shoulders.

"Stop," Natasha groaned. Clint froze.

"Stop what, sweetheart?" He couldn't keep the endearment from his response. This all reminded him too much of when he'd swallowed a glassful of Daddy's Special Drink and his mother soothed his aching stomach the rest of the night. Dad took it out on Barney, since Mother was with Clint at the hospital. 'Shh, sweetheart, Mommy loves you' was repeated in a mantra to him.

"Stop being so nice," Natasha grumbled, shoving Clint again, though she was too weak to do much more than fluff a pillow. Clint held back a bark of laughter by biting the insides of his cheeks.

Once the mission was over, Clint offered her double knuckle bumps. Natasha didn't refuse.

Mission number nine was hardly worth mentioning except for the factoid Clint learned about Natasha. As he dropped their mark, Natasha moved in as usual to make sure he was dead. None of Clint's marks ever made it past three last labored breaths but the tried and true 'Better Safe Than Sorry' method was trademarked by SHIELD. Natasha stooped over the body, a stout Cuban who'd been smuggling mutants out of a Florida penitentiary in exchange for cigars. A smoldering stogy lay in the man's paw, smoke still wafting from his split lips.

"Such a shame to waste a good cigar," Natasha commented. She plucked it from the man's grasp and to Clint's surprise, took a smoke.

"Didn't know you were a cigar fan, Nat," Clint said as he continued searching from his nest. He was the lookout until Natasha was back with Coulson at their base of operations. SHIELD clean-up would be by in minutes to take care of the rest.

"Smells like . . . being comfortable," Natasha supplied finally. Clint was fluent in Black Widow. That meant she was remembering a rare something that made her safe. Natasha never trusted those memories; so much so she wouldn't even use the correct word to express it. Clint could feel it though. He could sense the memory like a conversation taking place between two strangers behind his back. Strong arms, cigar smoke, a short man who laughed when she suggested he was American and corrected her with a gruff, "Canadian, twerp.". The fragment closed as Natasha refocused and headed out of the warehouse. Clint watched through his scope as she darted away and into the night for their rendezvous, dragging their string along with her.

Mission number ten did not go well. The whole team was out of synch. Coulson gave information too late, Natasha killed an informant they needed alive, and Clint missed. He never missed. The archer was about ready to snap his bow in half and toss the shards from his roost. All three of them refused to look at each other even after completing the mission, Coulson already at his paperwork. Electric tension crackled through the air between the trio like the warnings before a storm. Clint's jaw was ridged as he ground his teeth. Natasha met his eyes and raised her hands, counting ten fingers and demanding a double high-five. Anger wheezed out of Clint like spitting up smoke. It hurt to let go but felt so healthy when it was out of his system. Natasha volunteering physical affection? Yes please. Grinning with a tired smile, he slapped his palms to hers.

She stared at her hands when they finished.

"We've run out of fingers to count."

"Sure did. We could count our toes."  
Natasha's expression curled with amused disgust. Shrugging, Clint laughed.

"Okay, I guess we'll have to just keep track."

'Just Keeping Track' ended up being much easier with Phil and his meticulous paperwork. If the man were to be paid for counting their breaths he would. It was between missions fifteen and sixteen that Clint noticed his handler's string.

Jetting off of Coulson's pinky finger was a dark mauve string, shy and underdeveloped. Strings were not self-aware but Clint would have bet both his kidneys that it ducked low when he spotted it. Clint whistled as he entered Coulson's office, making sure the door was shut when he scrambled over to get a good look at it.

"What is it now, Barton?" Coulson asked, oblivious to the string now diving down and away from Clint's inspection. Smirking, Clint peered over at what his handler was typing away. A mission report, as per usual held his attention away from the mischievous specialist. Oh, Phil was smart but even he made mistakes when it came to keeping Clint from acting like an ass.

"You've got a string, Sir," Clint explained, flashing a shit-eating grin. As there were many types of strings in color and placement, there were many different types of string bearers. There were ones who got a new string every time they spotted an attractive partner and kinds who never bonded, even after marriage. Clint always put himself and Coulson in that last, unlucky category. As a mythical creature trapped in humanity, Clint never thought he was capable of bonding. Until that mission in Cairo where he connected pointer finger to pointer finger with a mark, Clint didn't think he could bond. Natasha had still been a surprise because of the magnitude of their bond.

Coulson was lobbed into the category because Clint was still half convinced the agent was a Life Model Decoy. Coulson did not make bonds. He liked coffee, and opera, and getting reports due on time. As long as Clint had known him, he had never bonded, let alone all the way to a pinky finger. If nurtured, Clint had no doubt it would grow to the ring finger in no time.

"Oh? Where?" Coulson checked his cuffs for a loose thread.

Clint jabbed the agent's pinky finger. "Here."

"What -?" Coulson didn't get it until Clint touched his own heart where his radiant, spitfire string danced with vibrancy Coulson's didn't have yet.

"Oh." Coulson's voice dipped to a gloomy note. "Oh, oh shit."

Grim-faced, Coulson inspected his hand, trying and failing to see the string. For a man learning that he found love, Coulson was panic stricken. To be fair, Clint wasn't much worse off when he found Natasha but the circumstances were completely different. Natasha was trying to kill him, for starters. No one had a knife up to Phil's throat but his own melancholy mood.

"Phil. . . ?"

Clint was unsure of what to do. Coulson covered his face in both hands. Now that was something. Clint had seen his handler take on everything from a Russian cartel to terrorists in mech suits without flinching. He'd killed with a briefcase and was a solid voice on missions not to be argued with. Yet this, being told his soul was in love brought the man to shambles.

"It's not on the pointer finger?" he finally asked. Clint swallowed something frog-shaped as he spoke.

"No, the pinky."

"Shit." Coulson looked at him between his fingers, the man's eyes so troubled Clint wanted to grab him by the hand and take him to see 'Captain America On Ice', the ice-skating musical he'd been dying to see for months. Clint didn't care how horrible and boring the show would be, anything to get his handler to stop looking like that.

Clint knelt close to him, Coulson hunched in his chair. "Can I ask why you're so upset?" Coulson shook his head, closing his eyes. "Please, Phil, this is important. You were there for me when it was rough with Natasha. What's wrong? Do you know who the other person is?"

Nodding, Coulson replied in a voice like gravel, "A cellist."

Clint hummed in approval. Coulson loved opera. A person with enough determination to master an instrument like that seemed perfect for him. Cellos were important instruments, not always noticed but big and loud when they needed to be.

"A civilian, then? You know you're allowed to date civilians." It was hard, though. A relationship like that came with lies and constant disappearances. Still, a cellist fit the personality to allow that sort of bond. Clint still didn't get why Coulson was so distraught.

"She's an agent."

Frowning, Clint said, "I don't see the problem."

Coulson dropped his hands and scowled. "Section Code, 319, Agents are not allowed to seek relations with one another, casual or long-lasting."

"Oh, Phil, you know that rule's BS. No one follows it. I've walked in on people fucking. If it was a problem, then why am I allowed to 'seek' after Natasha?"

Coulson just shook his head. "You are a special case. As a superior officer, I need to make an example."

"Fuck that, Phil. I've never seen you bonded to anyone, and you're gonna let this little rule get in the way of that? What if she gets snatched up by someone else? You'll lose her and never have anything but those dumb cards."

Coulson glared but most of the fight was out of him. "I can't jeopardize my job or her's. Just drop it, Barton." He returned to his paperwork as Clint cursed at him.

"That's it? You're done?"

"There's nothing more to do."

Clint grumbled and combed angry fingers through his hair. "Damn it, fine. Wallow and let her get picked up by someone else."

Standing, Clint stomped his way out of the room, careless about all the noise he made.

"Barton, don't follow the string to her," Coulson warned. "I don't' want you harassing her or suggesting anything."

"Grow some balls and maybe I will."

Coulson stood up then with a stony glare. "I want you to leave her be. Understand, Specialist?"

"Got it, Handler," Clint snapped as he hurried off, flipping Coulson the birdie on his way out.

He didn't follow the string but memorized the feel of it, the desperately quiet emotion it hung with. It was like learning the whimper of a specific puppy in a pound. Clint scoffed and left in the opposite direction of the string.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::

:::::::::::::::

:::::::

A queasy sort of anxiety settled over Clint's chest, like his lungs were coated in cactus needles. His fingers twitched and every little noise made him jump. Being marooned in a busy motel in Cancun with paper-thin walls until Coulson met them for rendezvous, there was quite a lot of noise. Natasha eyed Clint with a weary apprehension as the archer strummed his bow, eyes focused on nothing as his arms started to twitch.

He was feeling it again, the itch, the need to nudge perfect partners together.

For months he'd been able to force the impulse to the back of his eyes but with Coulson's refusal to seek the comfort of his other half, Clint was feeling the brunt emptiness of every person he passed that wasn't in love. Every. Single. Person.

It was beyond infuriating. Twice on mission, he stopped precious seconds before shooting his mark because – oh an indigo ring-finger string, he could fix that. He even went off communication to track down a woman who was chasing after the wrong man. Couldn't she see she already passed the man she was connected to? Clint slid down from his nest and bolted after the woman. His palms hummed as he conjured his birth staff, a fuchsia monstrosity made of solid wood and a darker shade of purple leather. It appeared in his palms, heavy but invisible to anyone not magically inclined.

He breathed, took aim, and pulled back the bow, a single, perfect golden arrow already notched. It whistled through the air and struck his target through her chest. She staggered, looked around with delirious eyes as her legs moved without her consent in the direction her other half was. Clint tossed the bow with a snarl – it vanished as it left his palm. It'd be back. It always came back.

Natasha fed off his irritation in spades, both of them spitting angry at each other. Clint didn't know if it was from the connection or just being around him while he went through Love Withdrawal. At that point, he didn't care.

"Barton, stop," she chided when he stood from his chair for the umpteenth time to pace.

"To hell with you," Clint was furious in an instant and snapped back. Natasha's eyes were dangerous when she stood.

"You are compromising yourself."

Clint laughed like he'd gurgled sour milk. The other bow was in his hands and he wanted to toss it but his fingers wouldn't let go. There were unhappy people everywhere. He could smell the whiff of soulmates pair passing each other outside. It was all he could do not to bolt.

"Clint, look at me," Natasha said and he jerked his head. His own soulmate was talking – gotta listen to his soulmate. She could tell something was wrong. His wings felt like they were on fire.

Without thinking, his feet started moving him back outside.

"Barton, don't break the line," Natasha warned, tone not one to be trifled with. Clint pleaded with his eyes. He needed to go out there. He didn't want to. He had to. He had to. He had to.

"Tasha," he wheezed with a dour expression.

Black Widow crossed the room and guided him back to the room's only bed, tossing him onto it. He groaned, wings crushed under his weight but that was nothing new. The bed gave as much comfort as a table.

"Did you take something?" she asked, stooping down to inspect his eyes.

Clint's palms went to either side of her face as he smeared his lips onto hers. His heart swelled and his wings twitched. Natasha pulled back and he followed, reaching to grab her hand that was bound by their string. He nipped at her lips, groaning at the cranberry taste and a darker flavor that was purely Natasha. It was like chocolate poured over strawberries or bitter mornings with black coffee while he watched a thunderstorm. It was perfect and electrifying and set his blood on a furious pace to his loins.

Natasha managed to get away and slapped his cheek with an open palm. Clint stopped, sobered like he'd been dunked in water. Staring up at Natasha, he touched a hand to his palm-stung cheek.

"Ow. . ."

Natasha managed to look like the one who was hurt and angry.

"You better now?"

"Umm. .?" SHIELD Agents weren't supposed to say umm. He looked around and lay back on the hard mattress. "Yeah . . . thanks."

Natasha nodded and pressed a quick kiss to the mark on his face before taking a chair on the opposite side of the room. Clint stared at the ceiling and idly touched the kiss mark.

The bow was back in his hands.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Clint was sure he'd never been colder in all his life. His limbs jerked underwater, skin numbing fast as he struggled to move. Natasha was somewhere nearby – he could feel the current she kicked up but the river water was too murky to spot her. Training guided his actions and Clint paddled diagonally to the surface, the river's water jerking him downstream and onto a patch of ice. Clint winced and clawed at the frost but couldn't hold. He was forced back underwater. Clint detached his quiver before his miscellaneous arrows could detonate. Some of those explosive and gel arrows didn't do well when soaked. His nose breached the surface again and he sucked in damp air before getting pulled back under. His fingers constricted around the SHIELD bow as he used it to carve into the ice for a grip.

Guided only by the string on his heart, Clint pulled himself out of the water and crawled to land, pillowing his head on snow and gravel. Squinting in the direction his string led, he spotted Natasha on land, a quarter of a mile upriver. She was a little black dot with scarlet hair in the distance, already running into the tree line for cover. Clint forced his legs to work and tried to ease his grip on the bow.

"Coulson," he tried the communicator. The thing better as hell be waterproof. "Widow and Hawkeye are down. We're soaked. Medical assistance requested."

The comm hissed and Clint swore. He checked over his shoulder for signs of one of their attackers but his mark was long gone, four miles upriver when he bound Clint and Natasha's hands together before kicking them into the water. Black Widow cut them free seconds later but Clint had trouble getting back up.

None of his limbs wanted to work right with the shock of cold. They needed to get warm. Their mark was the least life-threatening danger now. At least he had that training in Alaska to fall back on from before SHIELD. Dipping into an almost frozen river was not an uncommon scenario for Clint, through he begged this would be the last. Clint began his hike to Natasha, gravel and snow ruining his march as he skid along in wet boots. The one good thing from the ordeal was that Natasha climbed out on the same riverbank as his. Clint didn't want to think about what he'd have to go through if she was on the opposite side.

Nose running, he squinted into the wind for their string. It didn't react to the hail, even as dirty water dribbled into his eyes. He followed the string to Natasha's hide-away. Clint's eyes stung. Scratch that, everything stung. Ice shards started to form on his chin.

"T-Tasha," he called when he got close so she wouldn't be surprised.

Natasha whistled to him. It was a high, sharp noise more like a bird's. He followed it to a burrow made of a fallen log against a lichen-infected rock. Shuddering, Clint climbed in face first. Natasha was wedged deep and glared at him when he pressed his damp body to her's.

"Hawkeye, get up," she snapped and shoved him away so she could strip her clothes. "We need to get warm. Use these to block the entrance." She passed him her coat then pants and shirt, the bra, her delicate panties. A knife still strapped to her inner thigh was one of the last items to be removed and unlike the clothing was stacked in an ordered pile with her other weapons.

Clint just stared. He was immobilized by the sight of Natasha stripping, more frozen than when he landed in the river. Her blue veins were stronger than ever, dark on her dove-white skin. The woman was almost translucent, like he was staring at one of those see-through fish.

She shivered but handled the cold better than Clint did. A calm resilience shone in her eyes as she ordered the clothing to keep as much cold out from their makeshift bunker. Natasha was Russian, Clint reminded himself. She probably had antifreeze for blood.

He watched her breathe, the rise and fall of her supple breasts as her ribs expanded. His eyes wandered lower, studying each scar and wound now pink and bright as her nipples in the cold. Her legs and rump made a perfect heart, the hair at her groin a darker shade as elsewhere. A thick scar cut across her pelvis and followed the natural dip of skin. If anything, every little mark accentuated her beauty, proved that she was living and growing. Natasha Romanoff was not an emotionless ice-sculpture. She was as pretty as one, though. Hell, even her belly button was perfect.

"Hawkeye," she said. "Barton!"

This time she slapped her palms on his cheeks, kicking up a beehive under his skin from the cold nerves reacting. Clint hurried to take off his clothes but his fingers were stiff and useless. A strand of panic wove around him at the thought of frostbite setting in. He needed his fingers. There was no use for an archer who couldn't shoot. Natasha sighed at him, her breath billowing in a steam cloud before she took his hands and sucked his fingers. That got his blood flowing.

He couldn't feel much of the action because of his numb skin but he could see it; how her lips pouted and rose-pink tongue lapped. Clint winced at his growing arousal, too much for the cold weather. Natasha released him when his hands were able and stripped down.

The hardest part of his suit to get off was not peeling away his pants but the harness for his wings. Natasha smacked her lips like a cat, her brows narrowed in tight confusion at his last article of clothing. Clint tried for a smile but with the frost he wasn't sure what expression he made. Clint snapped the fastenings on his wings and tossed it away. His hapless, damp wings stretched and shook off what water they could. Their feathers weren't oily like a duck's so they'd need help drying.

Because of how he and Natasha lay together it was impossible she couldn't see them.

"Not a mutant, huh?" was all Natasha said as she took his hands and guided them on her skin to warm. Once he got the general motion down she did the same for him.

"M' a cupid," Clint explained. Because he could, he kissed her neck. To his surprise, Natasha made a hitching sound and arched her neck for him to explore. He did.

"For your sake I hope so. Having wings the size of a child's hands is a terrible superpower." She ran her nails down his spine. Everywhere Natasha touched came back to life.

"Hey, don't knock the wings," he argued back. Clint meant to tell her more about his being a cupid. He wanted to tell her about the string between them, red as a Cola bottle. He didn't. They'd have more opportunities. Ones in better conditions. He was still enormously happy she didn't wig out about his wing like his other lovers. She wasn't terribly engaged with them either, which was a nice surprise. It was usually one way or the other. Natasha was a happy, if unique medium.

"Of all the ways I imagined seeing you naked, this was not one of them," Clint wheezed. He spluttered with laughter when Natasha's teeth glinted with a smile.

"Oh? You didn't imagine us hiding like badgers in a hole?"

"Nah, I called that one," he teased. "I was expecting there to be more vodka. And it to be warm like when we were in Italy. That would have been a great time to be naked."

Natasha's shoulders shook with silent laughter. She dragged him close to her for them to share whatever body heat they had to spare.

"Are you implying you would only see me naked if you were drunk?"

It was his turn to quirk a brow at her. "Hell no. I'd just like to see you drunk. I bet you're a happy drunk."

"You'd be wrong." The words were heavy and Clint tried to clear them away but the damage was done.

"Let me guess, you don't get drunk?" He grinned at her and her lips curved into that honest smile he saw once in a blue moon. Clint's chest soared.

He kissed her full on the lips. Their breath smoked together and Clint's whole body reacted to the pulse of Natasha's. Her lips met his tenfold. Natasha steered the kiss, drove her tongue into his mouth and guided him to how she wanted him. Clint didn't mind. He liked it, actually. For a glorious moment he didn't need to worry about himself or being perfect. Two decades as the world's best marksman, the opportunity to be imperfect without reprimand was freedom in the highest order. The Universe was onto something when it paired them together.

Her hands hovered near Clint's wings. He groaned. "Tash, I appreciate the gesture but will ya touch my wings already?"

Natasha's fingers sank into damp feathers and Clint jerked high enough to thump his head on the roof of their log cave. Wincing but moaning at Natasha's continued touch, Clint couldn't decide if he liked it or not. When they first grew in, Barney tugged on them. Clint knew instinctively that was wrong and hid them. His mentor didn't care for them as long as he kept up practice. They had more than a few mutants at the circus.

"Tasha –"

"Shh."

Her fingers sank down to the flesh and Clint's eyes snapped open. Nuzzling his face against her, he kissed anywhere he could. Natasha encouraged him as she tossed her head back in a moan that made Clint's hips buck.

Right then, their communicators buzzed like drowning bees.

"Rescue team, five minutes ETA. Hawkeye, Widow, respond." Coulson's voice had never been more inconvenient. Clint would have snarled had Natasha's perfect fingers not curled around the curve of one wing. Limp, Clint fell face first into Natasha's buxom chest and was content to stay there.

"Make it ten minutes, Coulson," Natasha responded back, her fingers trailing up Clint's spine to his hair, guiding him lower on her. "Did I tell you to stop?"

The phrase was an order but Natasha's voice was honey smooth. Besides, there was no way he was arguing with her logic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for being patient during this hiatus. I am truly grateful for such wonderful and patient readers. This chapter is for all of you who have been waiting months for this update and for any new followers just getting started. One-thousand thanks to you all!
> 
> Bourne Legacy: Clint having experience diving into cold waters in Alaska is taken from the first scene with Aaron Cross in this film.


	8. Glass House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Of panic, broken friendship, and possibility.

Clint was not the first Mutant she had worked with before. As a child (what memories still endured from those years), she was rescued by a surly one with metal claws. He didn't like to talk about them, despite her attempts to understand. One day he finally shook her and said in a gruff shout, "None of yer concern!"

She'd been so surprised by it that Natasha learned to mask her curiosity around strange unknowns. Answers would come to her longer she stayed with the question, watching and studying. It was how she learned what she needed for missions. Things were all too easy when her target let his guard down and told her things based on trust.

The moment she saw Clint's wings, Natasha knew he would tell her anything she wanted if she stayed cool. These things were as much set in stone as her instincts. Bait and trap, wait for the fly to fall into the web. No need to go fishing when she could stay still and let the prey come to her.

Not that Clint was prey. His history, maybe. Perhaps anything else surprising about him. For now, the man kept to the Cupid storyline instead of declaring himself a Mutant. Once or twice he even pantomimed shooting an arrow at a couple, moments before they kissed. He got flustered when he noticed Natasha watching but she didn't make a sound. Bit eccentric but Natasha didn't have much problem with the man wanting to liken himself to a love god. With the bow it made sense; even if it was a bit immature.

People did crazy things to hide their fear, especially if they've been mistreated because of a specific trait. Natasha worked with a Mutant who insisted she was a goddess, anything to escape the "M" word and its prejudice. Natasha was much the same in regards to her own past. She didn't like explaining herself, letting another person have the power of knowledge over her. Natasha was a spy and knowledge was what killed or saved a person. As long as it gave her an edge, Natasha would tell SHIELD and it's agents as little about herself as possible.

Sometimes it created more of a problem than she anticipated. No one, for instance, knew her paralyzing fear of abandoned hospitals. Ever since the fire she caused back on mission in Minsk, Natasha couldn't stand them. Just the sight of a hospital, alone and ill-looking in faded green hues made her freeze. Screams and images flooded her mind, an elderly woman with her face being eaten by flames, the man who dragged his smoldering crutches, and the woman who clung to a baby more soot than flesh. The Hospital Fire was a mistake beyond recognition; a botched assignment entirely on her trembling shoulders.

"Hey, Widow, you alright?" Clint asked, resting his rifle for a moment to get a good look at her. He moved his fingers to dry lips and blew on them, keeping the digits warm. Clint had been acting off all mission without his usual bow but insisted that rotating weaponry was the best way to stay polished. Natasha agreed with him wholeheartedly, keeping several weapons and fighting styles at given intervals. However, it was obvious Clint didn't agree with his own advice. Some people had a single love.

"Yes," Natasha said after a moment. Frowning, she set her shoulders and continued walking, hands hovering over her guns.

"Really? 'Cause you don't look it to me," Clint continued to pester. Natasha shot a look at him. The man could really be a bother when he wanted to. Barton wasn't as good at sleuthing as she – ah but few were.

"In fact, to me you look like you're about to enter _The Path of the Dead_." Natasha turned to look at him again, this time ready to hit him.

"That better not be another _Lord of the Rings_ thing."

Clint pouted. Fuck professionalism. If her teammate was acting this way Natasha wanted out. Send another team to search the hospital.

"Shut up," Clint said maturely. "I miss Phil, okay? We're still . . . not really talking."

" _Hawkeye, you do remember your conversations are being recorded and put into transcript_ ," Coulson's cool voice chimed over their radio. Clint blustered and picked up his rifle, falling back into his no-nonsense agent mode. Natasha slipped into her own as best she could and followed.

It was difficult. As she and Clint moved through the halls, images sprang up from every corner. There was the boy in the wheelchair, peddling as fast as he could but shoved aside by a doctor who bolted for his life. At the overturned gurney, Natasha could hear the man who begged for her to help, grabbing her elbow before she yanked free. Clint stepped on broken glass and Natasha heard the windowpane breaking as two nurses jumped together from a window and landed with a wet thud. She knew because she was right behind them and broke her bones and blood was everywhere, everywhere the blood wasn't there were embers and ice from the hail outside and –

"Shit, Widow's down," Clint swore, eyeing the hallway they were in before crouching to Natasha's level. "Nat? Hey, Nat, can you hear me? 'S Clint. Let me see your hands."

Natasha looked at him, fire all around Clint. Couldn't he see it? Why wasn't he burning?

"Hey, hey. There's nothing here. Just a routine mission to grab a drug dealer and get info from him, remember? Nothing special. Probably don't even need our guns. Now, let me see your hands."

Natasha didn't trust the calm of his voice but his eyes were honest and kind. Natasha blinked away the images and lowered the barrel of her gun away from her lips. Clint smiled and made a cooing sound and her shoulders shook as she lowered it further. Natasha flipped the safety on the gun and Clint helped her up from where the two of them were on the filthy linoleum.

"Hawkeye and Black Widow, coming back out. Get another team to do your damn errands."

As soon as they were far enough away, Natasha stopped shuddering and her usual temperament returned. It was like her personality vacated itself while in the hospital. When they were farther than that, close to their rendezvous with Coulson, she brushed off Clint's help and wouldn't look at him.

She'd been foolish.

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::

It wasn't often that Phil was angry but today he was _pissed_. His team failed. Kaput. Whimpered like a punctured water bed. He kept in radio contact with Barton because Romanoff was unresponsive. Comatose, as Barton said. Except for the threat of her putting the gun back between her teeth. Both Barton and Phil knew well enough not to try and disarm the woman. She was volatile enough without further aggravation.

Kaput.

Phill chuckled at that. He rubbed his fingers over his chin, holding his jaw together as he thought. Through the skin, he could feel his own teeth, which ones were false from bad fights in his past and the now crude, cyanide-studded molar. He'd have to get in contact with a facility dentist to get it updated. Because he wasn't physically in the field every day, Phil wasn't fitted with the latest and greatest of The Last Resort. Thanks to this mission, that might change.

Upon making it back to SHIELD, Romanoff was suspended of active duty effective immediately and expected to participate in mandatory therapy. Barton's uptight girlfriend sprang a few loose screws. Phil was in trouble for not seeing the warning signs. Barton was in trouble for ignoring direct orders. With her record, Natasha might not make it back to the field; especially with how tight-lipped she was about what happened in the hospital. Fury exhibited his namesake and that damn Maria Hill was soaring up to Boss' Favorite. There were many perks to such a position, perks Phil had enjoyed for many years. Things like actual coffee in his office and days on end of uninterrupted paperwork. Now he couldn't go more than a few minutes without an annoyance.

"Coulson, any word on Natasha, yet?" Barton's question was out before he was halfway through the door. Phil swallowed hard to stave off launching his pen at the man. It had been an expensive birthday present to himself. Barton dragged one of the chairs close to the desk and sat with the back facing Phil, Clint's elbows resting on the metal back.

While nowhere as large as the Director's, Phil's office was appropriately sized with room for a desk, and extra chair (that Barton commandeered), and cabinets filled with essential supplies like paperclips and an extra glock. Phil had been lucky enough to snag an office above ground and enjoyed his only window – even if the vista was just the back end of a water fountain. Across from Phil was the room's only decoration, one of those classless motivational posters of a wide-eyed Persian Kitten clinging to a rope with the emblem "HANG ON!" Barton had given it to him as a joke; Phil kept it up as one. He was starting to rethink that stance.

"This isn't _Breakfast Club_ , sit correctly or I'll haul you out," Phil snipped. Glaring, Clint spun the chair around and sat, kicking the desk as he did.

"You're not as much fun as you used to be."

Phil picked up his pen and swallowed a sound of exasperation. "What I was and am are two different things. Such as what you are supposed to do, Barton, and what you are doing."

"Supposed to do? And what am I supposed to do?" Phil looked up from his work. Clint was mad as a wasp. "You know I was sent to Sitwell? Sitwell!"

"Yes. I heard." His jaw was tight again but he kept his tone neutral. He couldn't afford to keep going in circles with Barton.

"Well, it's awful. He find his nose in a mirror. And he doesn't trust me, either. Just this afternoon, he had me back down from my kill shot and had Rodriquez take down our target. In case you've forgotten, Rodriquez is messy. Would have been a clean through and through with me but oh no, Sitwell has to prove something with me and makes it a freakin' mutilation."

"I'm sorry, is this Rodriguez with a 'G' or a 'Q', because I know for a fact that Rodriguez is more harmless than a teething manatee."

"A 'Q', damn it. Would you listen to me for once?"

Phil rolled his shoulders, a practice he'd taken from his days at the greetings-card company. If all else failed, he had work there.

"It's strange; you're the first to complain so vehemently about Agent Sitwell."

Phil didn't care for the man himself but he wasn't so unkind as to encourage Barton acting out on the man. Barton formed loyalties the way a feline did, on his own terms. It had taken months for Phil to befriend the stray and didn't envy anyone who had to work with Barton while the man was in his current mood. To be fair, Phil befriended him while Barton was a suicidal cuss fresh out of bomb-squad. A cupid hung up in a one-sided romance couldn't be much worse, right?

"Listen. . .you've gotta get me out of there. I can't work with him."

"Have you spoken to anyone?"

"I'm speaking to you!" Barton looked up from where he was glaring and Phil caught a glimpse of that boy he'd found on the street, repeating to the air how to disarm a bomb and what steps could blow the whole thing up; which was everything. Phil tidied his paperwork and gestured for Barton to continue.

"When he talks, it's like he thinks he's better than you. Everything I say, he throws back at me like I'm an idiot." Barton scratched at his hair. "I mean, you do that too, but I know it's a joke."

"You're not an idiot, Clint." Undereducated without a GED or schooling to speak of beyond Grade School but the man was sharper than some SHIELD _geniuses_ that paraded their expertise like it was the only form of intellect.

Clint jerked at the mention of his first name and returned his sour stare to his hands.

"Look, I know what I am, okay? I'd like to pretend I'm a grown-ass man, now and again. But that's not the point. The point is, I don't work well with Sitwell. You, Natasha, and me were perfect, Phil. We need our team back."

"That's out of my hands," Phil said.

"Bull!" Clint's charged glare returned to Phil in full force. "You're mad at me for learning you're in love and taking it out on Natasha."

"If you honestly think that is the reason 'The Black Widow' has been barred, then you are far more of a child than I imagined," Phil shouted back, started by Clint's anger and humiliation bleeding into his tone. How dare Barton try to pin this on him?

"You want to know why our 'team' was broken up? We didn't work, Barton. The Black Widow is a dangerous operative, homicidal on a good day and insane on a normal. She isn't fit for service, let alone in the common rooms. You're too blinded by affection to realize it. And now it's not just your ass that's on the line but mine."

"Phil. . . Phil I'm sorry," Barton tried to interrupt his reprimand but Phil wouldn't have it. He was done taking Barton's crap.

"No, Barton. You don't get to be sorry. You don't get to use my first name, like you're someone who gives a shit what other people feel like." Anger was getting the better of him but Phil couldn't halt his words. The longer he looked at Barton, the less he wanted to control them at all.

"You are a selfish brat, dedicated to yourself and what others can get for you. You were that way in the army and you've never learned, have you? Still self-centered as the child I fished out of jail."

Breathing hard, Phil watched Barton, ready for a fight. To his uneasy surprise, Barton was calm. He didn't lunge forward, he didn't shout, he didn't even glare. All the aggression whimpered out of Phil and he was left in his seat feeling ridiculous.

"Barton -"

"Don't, okay? Really, Phil, it's okay." Clint offered an apologetic smile like he'd been the one shouting. Phil wanted to bury his head in the sand. However, training had him sitting straight in his chair. He hadn't an idea what came over him. He and Clint had always gotten along fine. Better than fine, they were a team even before Natasha. She was what made their partnership a perfect unit.

"Phil. Really. Don't worry. It's not you, I know that." Clint scratched at his ear, shoulders stiff and uncomfortable.

"It's your string."

"What?"

"It's rotting." Clint gestured to the air where Phil had to believe the string was by Clint's testimony. "You haven't nurtured the relationship you had – well could have had so the string is rotting. It'll break apart in a few days. Don't worry, you won't feel it. Not much, anyway. It's moved to your pointer finger."

Phil didn't know how he felt about that. Sad, he supposed? He would have said he felt relief but images of the life he could have had with . . . the cellist kept hammering him. Oh, now he knew what he felt. He felt awful.

"Like I said, don't worry. You're just a little, well, brokenhearted right now. That's enough to make anyone lash out, especially a tight-wad like you."

Phil glared again but there was no heat to it. He sat back in his chair, then composed himself when he realized he was sulking.

"Is there. . . anything you can do about it?"

Blinking, Clint leaned forward. "What? To fix it? No. No, you know that's not my place. I just point out a potential relationship. You're the one who has to decide to go through with it or not."

Oh. Phil put a hand to his jaw again as he thought. Clint made to speak several times but cut himself off.

"Phil. . .I have a favor to ask," Clint finally stammered when the silence grew too uncomfortable for him. After a moment, Phil gestured for him to continue. Clint sat back in his chair.

"Natasha won't be allowed back on mission until she'd gone through a psych-evaluation, right? And she isn't volunteering that information. What I was wondering was, could I do it? The psych-evaluation, I mean. I can't think of anyone else she might open up to, and I could record it or something so that no one worries about me editing."

Phil shook his head, laughter at his throat. "You're going to secretly record the Black Widow? I didn't realize you took Cloak and Dagger into your personal life."

Clint scowled at that but was too glad that Phil wasn't shouting to start again. "No, lame brain. I'm gonna tell her. You kiddin' me with the secrecy? Ain't no way you can pull one over on her."

"Like how you've kept the fact she's your soulmate from her?"

"Hey!" Clint barked, then calmed with a frown. "Forget about that, alright. You lost the high-ground on lecturing me about soulmates. Will you let me do the evaluation or not?"

Phil rested his forehead in the palm of his hand. Truth was, he missed the archer. Annoying as the man was at times, he was a good friend and better agent. Better than the juniors he'd been stuck training all week. There was only so much of a character like Nova that a person could take.

Besides, he owed this to Barton. To Clint.

"I'll make some arrangements."

"Thanks Phil, you're the best!"

Clint was back on his feet and out the room before Phil could say another word. Amused but mostly worried, Phil wondered if he'd made the wrong decision as he dialed the psychologist in charge of Natasha. Fury would be next on his list and Phil wanted as many things to already be in motion as possible to evade the Director's sure response to kick this project to the curb.

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The problem with going to see Natasha was that they both knew why he was there; to pry information from the woman and deem if she was fit for duty. Hell, to see if she was fit for society at this point. Phil told her psychologist, who passed on the information to Natasha and released the woman back to her room. Clint didn't know what state Natasha would be in when he arrived but the dull ache from his string told him to tread with care. As soon as he stepped into her room, Clint knew he would need to employ another strategy from the one he'd planned on using. Natasha was a blunt person used to blunt things. She would not react well to being pried open and shucked for information. A woman like Natasha needed to volunteer her knowledge, have a sense of control; if for no other reason, because such action had been denied her all of her life.

Clint knew it was a silly thought but Natasha's room felt cooler than any other part of SHIELD, even the labs. Maybe it was because her room was underground or closer to the facility's cooling unit, but the chill made him remember the cold Siberian frost Clint plucked her from. Clint breathed on his fingers to keep them working as he inspected the space. As anticipated, Natasha had no decorations, no personal touches to the room to mark it as hers. Just to make sure, he turned in place to check every wall and corner. Nothing. When he turned to Natasha, the woman watched him from where she'd coiled in on herself, knees to her chest and in the farthest corner of the room.

Clint knew the perfect way to get his soulmate happy again. He stayed where he was but waved at her with an animated sort of enthusiasm.

"Get up, we're going to blow this Popsicle Stand," he announced. Natasha might have been a rock for how impressed she was. An eyebrow rose but she didn't move or make a sound.

"Come on, I'll let you drive." She turned her head to him, expression a mask but Clint could feel emotion playing down their connection. Encouraged, Clint waved at her again to get up. "You don't want to talk, that's fine with me. We'll have a fantastic time not talking. But let's do it outside of SHIELD. This place 's gotten too stuffy for my tastes."

"Barton, what do you want?"

Clint frowned but didn't allow his shoulders to stoop. So he was back to Barton. At least Phil was calling him Clint.

"I want one date with you. That's all I want. One chance." Clint knew by the hum of their string, whatever Natasha had been anticipating wasn't that.

Natasha clucked with disbelief. "What makes you think I'll go on a _date_ with you?" She said the "D" word like it was the punchline of a comedian's joke.

Clint wasn't hurt. He smirked in return. "Because, I'll let you kiss me."

"Kiss you?"

"Yes."

"That's it?"

"That's all I need."

Natasha uncurled from her spot, a tigress stretching her shoulders before the hunt. A warning of danger pulsed through Clint's blood, primal as a deer warning his comrades of an approaching predator. The warning melted into a sweet sort of arousal in the knowledge that while Natasha had a thousand-and-one ways to kill him, she would never attempt any of them. Natasha was a fire that kept him warm and marauders at bay. He could never hope to control her but he knew down to his soul that no harm would come to him in her presence.

Clint reached out a hand, had to touch her, to let Natasha know she was safe with him, too. She caught it, inspected his fingers then kissed his knuckles. Clint's hips jerked without his consent and his wings flushed.

"Just one kiss?"

"I could be persuaded for a second." Clint stroked her cheek and Natasha allowed the action.

"You are one cocky bastard."

"Takes one to know one." Clint's hand fell away and he slapped his palms together. It snapped them both out of the daze they'd been in. "So, get ready, wear something casual, and see you in the parking garage in twenty."

"I'm not going on a date with you, Barton. You are being childish."

"See you in twenty!" Clint persisted as he made his way out. The door clicked shut behind him and Clint stood still in the silent hallway.

What the hell was he doing?

 


	9. Rally

            Sometimes if Natasha shut her eyes hard enough, she could pretend she was back at home with her mother and father.  If she clamped her hands over her ears, she could pretend to be chasing after her brother as they played outside in the snow.  When she wrapped her arms around herself, she could almost imagine her mother squeezing her in a tight good-night hug while their dog barked outside. 

            It didn’t work very long.  The dog bark always ruined it.  It’d turn into a high squeal, an ugly noise complicated by the sound of fire consuming their tiny house.  And that was a good memory.  Most of her memories were ghosts from missions she went on, strangling a man with piano wire, allowing her body to be used to further a goal, violent encounters with the Winter Soldier.

            Those last memories were what worried Natasha as she made her way to the parking garage, six minutes ahead of schedule to have some sense of control over the event.  Although Clint had never shown anything close to aggressive tendencies with her, Natasha knew it was better to be wary than harmed.  Nights with Winter Soldier were great – except when they weren’t.  To be fair, both she and the Soldier were highly trained killing units.  Both of them had issues with memories, Black Widow from her many times being reprogrammed and the Soldier from his constant cryo-sleep and reawakening.

            Between missions and his going back into hibernation, they didn’t have many chances to be together.  They took whatever opportunities presented themselves.  Natasha could still feel their first time, her hair getting caught on the flaky paint of the wall the Soldier had her pinned to.  Old nail heads bit through the leather of her suit, both of them too preoccupied with stealing warmth from the other to bother removing clothes.  Widow was sure to return the favor their second time around, all but tossing him at the wall.  A cooling body was close by but neither agent paid the corpse any mind, too enthralled with a blinding need to be close to the other’s body.  They didn’t kiss.  The Soldier sucked her throat and Widow refused to put her lips to him at all.  It wasn’t personal.  Not a moment of it.  The Soldier needed a body to fuck just as much as the Widow.  Still, there were moments when the Soldier would slow and nip her jaw and the Widow would sigh something that sounded like affection. 

            When it was over, he held her, two broken pieces trying to fit together and fix themselves.  It never worked.  There were times when they almost felt it, felt like being whole and safe but there were just too many pieces missing.  The Soldier pulled away and the Widow didn’t say another word as they returned to base. 

            For months now, Natasha was trying to start something similar with Barton but the man avoided her like he promised a vow of celibacy; which was ridiculous because just last week Debby from accounting thought it would be fun to tell her about that Halloween party back in ’07 when Barton posed as Robin Hood and slept with half the – but that didn’t matter.  Natasha was curious to know if sex with Barton would be any different from the Soldier.  She knew without doubt there would be small differences, Winter Soldier’s left arm was metal, their coupling was a base instinctive need, Soldier had more facial scruff than Barton, and a whole different canter to his voice from Barton’s drawl.  Natasha didn’t care about those differences or how Barton’s kisses were kinder than the bites Winter Solder marked her with.  What Natasha was curious about was that moment after, when Black Widow and Winter Soldier’s hearts almost matched but were never right.

            Natasha was curious if Barton might match her.  The answer, regardless, would be a frightening lose-lose.  More than anything, Natasha wanted to know for sure.  It was more important to her than the prospect of them being imperfect as she suspected.  Barton might have a hard time adjusting, based on his puppy-like affection for her and his hesitance in forming anything other than a one-night-stand with Natasha – by his own words.  She herself was unopposed to sleeping with the man more than once, even if they didn’t work well.  It never stopped her from sleeping with the Soldier.

 On the other hand, if Barton was her match . . .Natasha didn’t want to think about it.  She put the thought aside and strode into the SHIELD parking garage for “Private Vehicles,” opposite the one that housed cars for missions.  Although Natasha had been shown the garage on her tour of the SHIELD facility, it was her first time being in the cavernous tower herself.  Important structures in SHIELD were built underground, the less important built above ground.  The parking garage was small, only two levels and filled with less lighting than the mission garage.  SHIELD liked to splurge on the best of the best, just not when it came to items of personal use.  Since the cars here weren’t government bought they weren’t given as much attention.  For the most part, the garage was used for agents who lived on site and were granted enough security clearance to leave of their own volition.  Although skilled, Natasha hadn’t been granted the opportunity. 

After her stunt last week she didn’t have clearance to leave the facility by herself, let alone in a car.  There was a strong possibility that Barton wouldn’t be allowed to escort Natasha off base.  At that point, Natasha could care less about SHIELD protocol.  She assumed by Barton’s actions, he could too.  She supposed that was part of the fun of it, sneaking out of SHIELD while her status was being evaluated.  It was reckless and exactly what she needed.  Maybe not in the long run, but Natasha had never been a person who expected a tomorrow.  It was something she, Barton, and the Soldier all had in common. 

Barton met her just outside the elevator 4.06 minutes later, the archer grinning in surprise when he exited the doorway and spotted Natasha standing close to a wall just opposite.  She made sure to keep her expression cool, but Barton’s genuine joy at seeing her was hard to ignore.  The poor man was head over heels.  She’d have to remember to be gentle with him when he realized they weren’t what he seemed to be waiting for. 

 “What are you smiling at,” Barton said, walking close and ducking his head a little to see her.  His smile was boyish.  Natasha bit back a laugh at his antics.   

            “Nothing of importance.”

            “Oh?  Doesn’t look it to me.”  Barton tipped his head to the side like a large bird and she huffed.  His smile was downright smug now. 

            “Are we going somewhere or are you going to smirk at me all day.”

            “Oh, I plan on doing both,” Barton countered without hesitation. 

She swatted his shoulder and together they made their way to his car.  Once the fuchsia Fiat was in sight, Natasha knew who it belonged to.  She shook her head at him and Barton just grinned all the merrier.  As promised, he handed his keys off, their lingering touch reigniting Barton’s smile.  If holding his hand was all she had to do to get that reaction, Natasha knew she’d have him by the end of the evening.   

“Go easy on her, okay?”

Natasha didn’t hold back her laugh.  “Please, Barton.  I’ll treat her so well she won’t want to go back to you.”

“Hey! Don’t steal my car from me,” Barton protested as they got in.  “It took us a long time to see things eye-to-eye but now me and the car are square.”

“The _car_ and _I_ ,” Natasha corrected.  “Honestly, if I am correcting your English your country is forsaken.”

Scratching the top of his nose, Barton wheezed with laughter.  “What’chu talkin’ about?  My English is perfect.  If you want someone talking fancy, you shouldn’t be talking to an ex-carnie.” 

“I will keep that in mind when I need someone of a superior vernacular.”

“Vernacul-what?”  Barton slipped on a pair of sunglasses as Natasha started the car.  It purred and Barton pouted at her.  “Damn, she never starts up like that for me.”

“That’s because she needs a woman’s touch.”  Feeling bold, Natasha ran her index finger around the steering wheel.

Barton snorted, unimpressed.  “Quit flirting with my car.  And I have fantastic hands, thank you very much.  Never got any complaints.”

“Your performance is so pitiable no one has wanted to tell you the truth.”

“Oh ho, ouch!” Barton barked with laughter.  “It didn’t sound like you had anything to complain about back at the river.”

Natasha turned to look at him and it dawned on the man that wasn’t quite the right thing to say.  Even with the car engine going and the wheels chewing on the concrete as Natasha drove out of the garage, the silence in the car was oppressive.  Barton’s shoulder’s twitched and she remembered the wings he had there.  Somewhere their conversation twisted on itself and they were left in a dark parking garage.  Natasha wasn’t quite sure what to make of it.  She’d fallen into a routine, one she used on marks to make them comfortable around her but riled up with arousal to make them careless.  Then Barton did something unusual, reminded her that he wasn’t a mark and they weren’t on mission.  Without an alias to hide behind, Natasha wasn’t sure what to do.

The truth was, the moment by the river had been real for her.  It wasn’t a performance.  It wasn’t a scheduled event in the mission and it hadn’t been what she was anticipating. Natasha was great with improvisation but even that was within an act; the seductress, the killer, the Black Widow.  The woman underneath it all was small and soft, hidden behind wall after wall of emotional protection built by an illusion of a strong woman without fear.  She followed the muscle memory and acting imprinted on her from the Red Room.  She pretended to be as vicious as the man who rescued her who smelled of cigars.  It was a show, of course.  The real woman slipped between the bars now and again to investigate her world but those visits were few and far between.

It just happened that most of those visits were in proximity to Barton. 

   Barton scratched at his nose and asked Natasha to roll down the window when they got to the guard check.  Leaning over Natasha, Barton flashed his SHIELD badge (assuring the guard he was wearing his big-boy pants and could leave base).  By the time he was back in his seat and Natasha was driving out into the sunlight, she already had her mask back on.  She was going to get to the bottom of this Barton thing, figure out where they stood, then. . .she’d figure out something to do after that. 

Barton explained the roads she’d need to take but didn’t tell her the final destination.

“It’s a surprise!” he promised, like that explained everything.  Natasha rolled down a window, though it was to blanket herself in the sound of rushing air opposed to needing to feel cool. 

            Natasha anticipated Barton being unable to stand the noisy silence but the man was relaxed and comfortable.  He kept sneaking glances at her and each time he was caught, Barton smiled at the corner of his lips before returning to investigating anything outside the car.  Natasha reminded herself of the ops they’d been on, missions where Barton stood still and quiet for hours, waiting for a target as Natasha looked into other matters because she couldn’t stand sitting still.  A spider was never still for long; working on her web, mending broken strands or wrapping prey.

            When Natasha drove into the parking lot of a fairground and Clint instructed her to park, the Black Widow glowered at him.  This was a joke, yes?  Of all the places to take her to relax.  It was almost insulting.  No, actually, it was.  Clint knew she grew anxious around crowds when they weren’t on a mission.  Besides, she knew that he knew that she knew he hated crowds himself.  It was all a bit immature. 

            “A carnival?  Truly?  This is where you want to waste our day?”

            Barton made a noise of mock insult as he unbuckled.  “So says Nancy-Negative.  Luckily I’m a forgiving guy and I’m still gonna impart my knowledge of this subculture onto you.  How’s that for a fancy vanicular?”

            “Vernacular, Clint.”

            He beamed at her with the use of his first name.  Natasha made a note to refer to him with it. 

            “Come on.”  He hopped out of the car (yes, Clint bounced) and tapped the hood till she got out and locked up.  She held onto the keys but he wasn’t anxious to get them back.  

            Clint’s grin touched every part of his face.   He grabbed for her hand and Natasha was surprised that she didn’t feel an instinctive need to deck him.  She tensed, alright, but there was no pinch between her shoulders or queasy throb at her gut from being touched when she didn’t want it.  She didn’t even feel the need to pull away, something that chases after her just moments after being with the Winter Soldier.  It felt. . . right.  Not exactly nice, only it was, and she was calmer than without the touch.  She felt like a top that had been spinning and was finally stilled.

            She dropped his hand and took a step away from Clint.  By that time they were close to the gates, families with small children and teens on dates congesting the area.  Four lines zigzagged into the gates, passing security checks where men searched bags.  A child shirked and an elder wheezed as he smoked.  Everyone talked all at once but not a word could be heard in the mush.

            Clint offered his hand again.  “Hey.  Hey, Nat.  I’m right here.”

            Crowds pressed all around them but near Clint they parted, the squat man brushing them out of way with a shrug of his shoulders.  He kept the spot close to her clear.  Natasha glared again.  She didn’t need his protection (even if her hands were shaking). 

            “We’re partners, remember?  You’ve got my back and I need yours.  I can’t get through this crowd without you.”

            “I don’t need you patronizing me,” she snapped back.  Clint just kept smiling.  Natasha wanted to hit him.  Since that first day they met, caught in the blur of the snow, Clint hadn’t been afraid of her.  It was infuriating.  Any sane person was.  Even some who had gone mad knew by instinct to be wary of her.  What made him so different?  

            “I’m not patronizing you,” Clint said.  “Remember back in Syria when you warned me about the other sniper?  I need your help now just as much as I did then.  I hate crowds, Nat.  I really do.”

            “Then let us go somewhere else.”  Her shoulders hunched up as the crowd pressed closer, adapting to Clint as they surged forward to the gates. 

            “Not an option.”

            “And why is that?”

            Though his smile never wavered, it became something lighter.  “It’s a surprise.”

            She stared at his hand, the masses moving around them.  Clint kept smiling and Natasha couldn’t stand it anymore.  She grabbed his hand and they marched past security, Clint flashing a badge that allowed them to pass without issue.  Natasha was grateful.  Although her gun had been taken from her, Natasha would never allow herself to go unarmed, two knives on her person. 

            Calmed (grudgingly so), Natasha was in a more observant mood.  The fair wasn’t huge by any sense of the word but there were definitely more people here than at SHIELD.  Over the din, joyful screams echoed from an area with more adult rides.  A tilt-o-whirle could be seen, dangling it’s cargo over the heads of onlookers.  Every corner of every spot housed a food or collectable stand, both over prices at rates to make the government envious.  Where there wasn’t a questionable kalamari or low quality art stand, was a trashcan.  Where there weren’t trashcans were families with fussy children.  Banners tried to grab her attention as much as the bone vibrating music.  It was all very exciting but overwhelming.  Natasha wondered again why Clint thought to bring her here. 

            “Come on, let’s loose the crowd.”

            Clint tugged her in a direction the crowd wasn’t.  After a few minutes negotiating with his elbows, Clint led her to a less crowded barn, housing an assortment of animals:  cattle, sheep, goats, chicken and children.  The children were roudy enough to be on the animal list but weren’t actually in cages.  She excluded the ones in the petting coral, giggling up a storm whenever a dour calf lapped at their kibble studded hands.  Parents cheered on, taking photos and video to live in eternity on the internet.  Tracking civilians had become so much easier with social networking, people voluntarily letting strangers monitor them. 

            “See, isn’t this better?” Clint encouraged as he made a sweeping gesture.  Musk and feces scented the air but as a whole, Natasha enjoyed the presence of feather-footed bantam chicks to a bustling crowd.   It was quieter here, the lighting a dim, soothing quality like sitting in the shade of a tree. 

            “Marginally,” she said to be difficult.  Clint rolled his eyes. 

            “Yeah right.  Go pet a cow or something.  I know you’re dying to.”

            Natasha, for the record, had no intention of doing any such thing.  She did, however, enjoy walking past the stalls.  Goats were by far the friendliest, stepping on top of one another to press their nosed through the fence to try and lick her.  There was a misfit of the bunch with a crooked eye that reminded Natasha of the milk goat her family raised before everything.  She’d forgotten about it, giggling when her mother spoke in empathy to the animal on a cold morning before sunrise.  Clint had a great deal of fun riling up chickens by clucking and gesturing at them. Other fair goers stopped to watch when he got too boisterous and Natasha would have warned him off had Clint not grinned so bright.  When he got into an actual fight with a turkey, Natasha put a stop to it before the Tom’s handler (a young teenager with FFA written on her shirt) started crying. 

            “Frickin’ pheasant.  I would have won too, if it weren’t for those meddling kids and that secret agent,” Clint sulked as they left the barn. 

            “That sounds like another culture reference,” Natasha commented.

            “Scooby-Doo.”

            “Scooby-What?”

            “Holy cow! How have you not heard of Scooby-Doo? We’re already passed, like thirty balloons and giant toys of ‘em.”  Natasha shrugged and Clint shook his head in exasperation.  “Okay, before our next mission, we gotta watch some Scooby-Doo.  You can’t work for an American Government agency and not know America’s favorite Great Dane.  Maybe we’ll watch the Zombie Island movie but nothing after Hex Girls.  It got dumb after Hex Girls.” 

            Natasha wondered when this became her life, listening to the world’s best archer (and biggest child), monologue about meaningless culture references.  She hadn’t a clue what he was saying but Natasha found herself smiling anyway.  Up until Clint, her life was focused on the bidding of whoever held her collar.  While SHIELD was unquestionably the possessor of that chain, being a tool in an organization’s kit was not all of her life anymore. 

            She wondered if the difference made her a better agent or not.

            Seeing how happy Clint was, she didn’t want to be a better agent at all.  She wanted to be Natasha.     

            After navigating the barn, Natasha found the crowd wasn’t quite so oppressive.  She and Clint darted through gaps like they were on a mission following a target.  Natasha’s muscles fell into a comfortable rhythm, soothed by the normalcy of being on the hunt.  She didn’t know where they were going but Clint sure wanted to get there in a hurry.  While on mission, Natasha was the one who usually lead their duo while Clint kept an eye for enemies.  It was without any real surprise that Natasha realized she was comfortable with their role reversal, Clint leading.  She was used to taking cues and found it easy to understand what Clint was thinking before he finished gesturing her forward.  His smile was ever present.

            After a few more minutes, they were in another part of the fairground where the crowd thinned.  Clint’s grin was batty as he swung his arm for Natasha to hurry. 

            “This is what had you so excited?” Natasha asked.  She didn’t see what all the fuss was about as they entered an old-style theater.

            The _Sinclair’s Scandal_ was modeled to look Western but fell into a composite, half-European pub with a stage too big for the room.  Only a handful more than seventy people could squeeze into it, less with how much space the round serving tables took up that sat six each.  False candles flickered from the tables and customers squinted at their menus in the relative darkness of the theater.  The room was at odds with itself, modeled for the 19th century but illuminated with lights clinging to the walls Natasha knew without doubt were from the late 1950’s.  The bulbs inside couldn’t be more than a few years old.  Dark but cramped, the theater felt a bit like a broom closet.  All of it would have been unremarkable if it wasn’t for the sage, polished black with plenty of room for the six ballet dancers in the mists of a performance. 

            “Oh.”

            Her breath bellowed out like someone squeezed her gut.  The dancers weren’t fantastic in any sense of the word.   Good would be a kind word for them.  Their form was off and one of the girl’s was far too timid in her steps, forcing the others to compensate.  A recording of piano music played over the sage, not loud enough to fully disguise the sound of the six dancer’s feet.  Despite all of that, Natasha felt calmed down to her bones. 

               All of her years as a Black Widow, the one thing she enjoyed was dancing.  Her instructor had a cruel sense of perfection for the girls and the daily practice had been exhausting, but dancing was the moment when Natasha felt alive.  It was another performance, yes, but one where absolute concentration was required of her; body and mind.  While dancing ballet, she didn’t have time to worry about the black spots in her memory.  She didn’t have to fight off memories like when she killed a child soldier or the shuddering breath of a hit that used her body.  When Natasha danced, she was nothing but the emotion of the music she danced to.  Some songs were of hope and longing, emotions she didn’t understand but danced to all the same.  More than once she danced herself near blind with fatigue, arms twisting, legs bent, jump, pause, jump, start again.

            It was release without lust, ecstasy without drugs, and spiritual without religion.

            “Come on, let’s get a seat,” Clint said, his voice patient as when he was focusing for a target.  He’d pocketed his sunglasses when Natasha looked to him and he chewed on the side of his lip, pulling back another smile.  He knew he’d done well.  Somehow his presence didn’t interrupt Natasha’s good mood as much as she thought he would.  She was okay with him seeing her enjoy herself.  Natasha didn’t know if she herself was alright with that acknowledgement but her body told her she was in no danger.  A creature of instinct, Natasha listened to what it said.

            “Yes.”

            She didn’t need to say anything more than that as she slipped her arm around his, like Clint was an escort for a gala far more sophisticated than the current surroundings dictated.  Natasha noticed Clint’s shoulder’s jerk and the blush at his cheeks.  She made a note to try and tease him about his wings later.  For now she wanted to watch the dance.

            A waiter eventually came by to their table and Clint ordered for them in hushed tones.  Other patrons were similarly quiet as they watched the ballet.  The waiter returned with water, two beers, and a basket of bread.  Clint started cutting his own roll and Natasha scowled at the poor choice of alcohol but objected when Clint made a face and grabbed for the bottle.  He rolled his eyes and clinked their drinks together.  It was bitter and dry and Natasha was surprised to find that Clint had a roll buttered and ready for her.  Although internally appreciative, Natasha prepared her own roll.  Habits.  Clint wasn’t offended. 

            When the waiter arrived with their food, Natasha realized it had been almost twenty minutes and neither spoke during the entire time.  Clint just grinned at her and made a   
“shushing” motion when she tried to speak.  She took another swig of the beer and studied the meal in front of her.  Enchiladas and two fish tacos, both with ample dressing and a charitable plate of salsa for her to add.  Spicy.  Clint knew her well. 

            Before they finished their dinner, the dancer’s act ended.  Natasha slumped in her seat and longed to take the stage as a singer prepared for her song.  At the end of the dancer’s performance, audience members clapped and started to mummer amongst themselves.  A few stood from their tables and went back to the fair outside, a whole other world compared to the atmosphere of the theater. 

            “What’cha thinkin’, ‘Tasha?” Clint asked between mouth-fulls of his own burrito.  It wasn’t quite as spicy as Natasha’s and he’d taken more interest in the side of rice and beans that came with it. 

            “The sauce could be better,” she deflected.  Clint’s lips formed a soft smile and he looked away but Natasha could tell that he glimpsed at the truth through her.  Clint had a way of knowing exactly how she felt.  She’d be startled by it if she had any doubt in the fact that Clint would never do a thing to hurt her.  Far too loyal. 

            Unfortunately for the singer, she wasn’t quite as enchanting as the dancers.  Natasha focused on her meal in earnest and finished before the singer was.  She drank half the beer and all of the water, then a second glass as she waited for Clint to finish.  They both ate with careful practice, a skill learned by feverish hunger countered by the pain of eating far too quickly.  When on the move and starving as a child, one learned to hold onto their food but not vacuum it up, despite how much they might want to otherwise.  Apparently Clint had more patience in that regard than Natasha.  She decided not to feel insulted by that by eating another biscuit.   

            “I know the guy who owns this place,” Clint said as he wiped his hands down with a napkin.  His voice was casual but experience with the man told Natasha he was gauging her reaction.  “Why don’t we go back stage and talk to ‘em?”

            “Okay.”

             She didn’t feel up to talking any more than necessary. 

            Tossing a few bills down, Clint tipped for the waiter and paid for the meal (neither was a generous amount but the service had pretty much been non-existent).  They stood and left without any problem from the waiting staff or customers still listening to the singer.  She was far too pitchy for Natasha’s tastes.  Clint ushered Natasha to an unmarked door that opened to a brighter hallway.  It was noisy there, muggy with light and sound from the stage.  Their shoes squeaked on the false-wood floors.  Natasha was ready to leave the hallway not three steps in.  It left her with an uncomfortable feeling, a flick at the back of her neck or the grinding of dental tools on plaque. 

            “Almost there,” Clint promised and she wanted to hit him for knowing her so well.

            Almost at the end of the hall, Clint turned left and rapped his knuckles against a door.  After ten seconds and another, more impatient knock, it opened.

            “Barton!” a man the size of a water buffalo cheered and slung his arms around Clint, hoisting him four feet off the ground.  Clint’s hair brushed the ceiling and he squawked as he shoved the man as best he could while his arms were pinned.        

            Natasha had her knife out and was preparing to stab at the first fleshy spot she could find when she noticed Clint was laughing (wheezing) again. 

            “Natasha, ‘s fine – Pitor, put me down, you brute!” Clint addressed both of them in one breath. 

            _Pitor_ glanced at Natasha over Clint’s shoulder.  His grin was warm with surprise.  Natasha kept her knife raised.

            “Uuhg, seriously, guys.  Pitor, you’re breaking my spine.  Natasha, at ease.”  She registered the military command and it was just the push she needed to relax her shoulders.

            “He’s not actually breaking my back.”  Pitor gave a hearty chuckle and squeezed.  “Never mind.  He’d killing me.  Attack, my Russian Ninja!”

            Pitor guffawed and Natasha slipped her knife away.  She could hear the joke in Clint’s words.  Pitor dropped Clint, who fell unceremoniously on his rump.  So much for SHIELD training.   To Natasha’s statement, Pitor scooped her up next and hugged her.  Without thinking, Natasha kicked and clawed but Pitor’s skin turned to steel.  Part of her mind registered him as a mutant, one of the X-Men who joined back when her nation was still the USSR.  It was big news at the time.  However, most of her mind was preoccupied with spitting fury.  Pitor laughed and adjusted Natasha like she was nothing more than a very big, very angry cat.  

            “Yo! Colossus! Put her down!  Natasha’s got a thing about touch; as in _don’t_.” 

            Still grinning (she didn’t think he was capable of anything else), Pitor set Natasha down.  She stood hunched with her fists raised like she was prepared for another attack.  Natasha’s shoulders shook with the absurdity of it all.   Having the sense to look at lest a little embarrassed, Pitor addressed her in Russian.

            “ _My apologies.  My name is Pitor Rasputin_.”

            It was nice to hear her mother tongue, though Natasha wasn’t in a mood to appreciate it.  Scowling, she took a moment to survey him again.  The man had to be eight feet tall.  Even after he deactivated his bizarre mutation, his flesh still looked hard as steel.  His accent was odd, his Russian off.  He’d been away from home a long time.  It would make sense.  Natasha remembered the higher ups of her unit complaining about a natural born soldier being snatched up by an American based Mutant group before the government could enlist him.      

            “ _Romanova.  Natasha Romanova.  How did you know to speak to me this way?”_

_“Barton called ahead, said you are Russian_.”

            “Are you guys talking about me?  I heard my name,” Clint tried to cut in. 

_“What is your relation to Barton_?”

            “ _With Barton?  Old friends!  A good friend who grew up in a circus got homesick while we were X-Men so we visited the one Barton performed at.  Very exciting!  Kurt managed to befriend the archer Hawkeye and the three of us performed together_.” 

            “Whoa! Whoa, I definitely heard my name that time.  What are you guys saying?”          

            Pitor became nervous after a moment.  “ _He did tell you about his time in the circus, yes_?”

            “Guys, really.  That’s not fair.  At all.”

            “ _Yes, though not in so much detail_ ,” Natasha answered, ignoring Clint. 

            “Tasha, not you too.”

            “ _Good! Good! Barton and I have not spoken in years and I did not want to start off on the wrong foot_.” 

Because starting on the ‘right foot’ demanded a person launch their long missed friend **and** a perfect stranger into the air. Instead, Natasha said, “ _Likewise, I guess_.”   

Pitor’s enthusiastic grin let her know she’d said the right thing.  Clint groaned and smacked a palm to his forehead. 

“Okay, this got old five years ago.”

“ _How long do you plan to keep_ him ‘out of the loop’, _as they say_.”

“Guys, please, all in English, not just some of it.”

“ _Awhile yet.  Punishment that he neglected to tell me of his schemes_.”

“I hate you both!  No, you know what?  You guys suck.  S-U-C--”

Pitor grabbed Clint again and heaved him over the shoulder like a stolen bride.  Clint thrashed but it wasn’t near the lethal levels Natasha demonstrated.  Pitor didn’t even need to turn his flesh to steel.  Natasha smirked as Pitor opened the door wide for her to accompany him. 

“Come on! That’s just mean!” Clint complained.  Natasha patted his cheek with a chiding touch. 

“Next time, don’t surprise the Russians.  We know how to make our enemies suffer.” 

Clint grumbled and muttered something that might have been a racial slur.  Natasha smirked the way a spider did as she reeled in her prey. 

Once in the room, Pitor set Clint down.  The archer righted himself and grumbled as Pitor grabbed a chair for Natasha.  Studying the room, she set it close to a wall that gave her a vantage point for every corner.  The room was simple, small with just enough space for Colossus to pace but not fully relax.  With the addition of Clint and Natasha, they were pretty tight.  Spare clothes were set by a vanity set dusted by stage makeup.  This was a dress room.  Based on the several pictures wedged between the vanity’s mirror and frame, Natasha knew the room to be Pitor’s.  One picture was of the X-Men team in full gear, the image faded by time.  Another was of Pitor and a younger girl, the corner dog-eared.  Natasha couldn’t make out the faces from the distance. 

“You are a performer,” Natasha said after a while. 

“Now and again, yes,” Pitor answered.  “For the most part I keep this theater open during festival.  It makes a nice break from my other duties.” 

X-Men business, he meant.  Natasha kept her eyes from wandering back to the photographs. 

“Yeah, and this theater makes a nice haven for people like . . . well, people like Pitor and me,” Clint added.   

“Indeed! Most normal customers don’t know this theater exists!”

“I understand,” Natasha said.  “This isn’t the first Mutant Friendly club I’ve been to.” 

Pitor shot a look at Clint and the archer made a dismissive gesture.  Natasha watched him but Clint just smiled at her.  She hoped she hadn’t just outted him.  It seemed that the two knew each other well, but then again, Natasha had only recently learned about his mutation.  She could understand his wanting to keep his second set of appendages secret; especially with how non-functional they were. 

Clint hopped on top of the vanity and kicked his legs.  Because of the tight quarters, Clint was little more than an arm length away.  Pitor propped himself against a wall and regarded the archer with his never ending grin.  The two started to chat, simple things at firs, catching up on what was going on with their lives.  Pitor was estranged from the old team (for reasons he was unwilling to discuss).  Clint made note of Natasha being his new partner but no specifics on who she was or how they met (‘this one cold day in Russia, I got my ass kicked’).  Eventually the dialogue changed to remising old stories, jokes that needed to be explained for Natasha to get (but ‘you had to be there’) and stories that hurt at the time but they could laugh at now (even if it still stung a little).  Clint tried to include Natasha but she was more content to watch, to study Clint and gleam information in this way.  It felt voyeuristic but not in a way that was uncomfortable, listening in on Clint’s past. 

Now and again, Clint would look her way, catch her eye, and hold it.  After a while, Natasha focused less and less on their conversation and closer to Clint’s reactions, they way his eyes squinted when he laughed or the way his knees pointed towards her.  She took note of her own behavior, calm despite being in a new location, with an enormous man who could crush her without any feasible defense on her part.  None of it mattered.  Not with Clint so close; Clint who honed his sight to hunt targets at distances Natasha couldn’t see, Clint who sat with her in her first month at SHIELD when she was still half wild, Clint who hummed the instrumental parts of “Carry On My Wayward Son,” during missions to annoy Coulson, Clint who remembered she loved ballet. 

Natasha’s mind drifted.  She thought of the ballet earlier, how she could improve it.  She resisted at first, instincts honed by basic survival to stay aware of herself.  Stay alert.  Stay vigilant.  Death waits for weakness.  She focused on Clint, talking with Pitor but still taking the time to check their perimeter and Natasha’s status.  _Safe_.  It was a heavy sensation, like a stomach full of food.  _Safe_ lay over her shoulders and _safe_ told her she could let herself go. 

::::::::

::::::::

  “Hey, Tash,” Clint said. 

Her eyes flashed open and Clint was there, leaning close but with room for her to breathe.  Pitor stayed against the wall and Clint positioned himself so she was obscured from Colossus.  She appreciated the gesture. 

“Mmun,” Natasha tried to speak but her throat was tight.  She’d fallen asleep.  Natasha’s back went ridged and she glared at the door, heat at her cheeks.

Clint chewed at his lip and she had no doubt that he would be teasing her if they were alone.

“Come on, Pitor says he can get the stage just for us.” 

_What_?

Natasha looked between the grinning Clint and her fellow Russian.  Colossus nodded.

“Barton tells me you enjoy ballet.  If you would like, I can close shop early and you can have the sage alone.  No trouble.  Promise.” 

Natasha’s suspicious gaze returned to Clint.  His grin was patient and he held a hand out for her.  Natasha ignored it as she stood then left the room.  Clint and the lumbering giant followed shortly after.  Pitor broke off to speak with other workers of the theater. 

“You still tired?  Look pretty out of it.”

Natasha’s glare turned hot when it landed on Clint. 

“Geez, excuse me princess.”

Natasha turned her head and shrugged her shoulders away from Clint.  He advanced forward to make up the distance. 

“Oh what?  Now you’re not talking to me?”  She could tell he was joking based on his tone, but Natasha wasn’t in the mood for his bluff.  Clint scratched at his head as his lips evened into a happy neutral.

“Don’t worry about dancing.  I have it on good assurance that no one but you and me will be in the theater, if you want that.  You can dance for however long you want. . .well, within the next two hours because the fair is already closing and we were kinda supposed to leave twenty minutes ago, but Pitor is on the inside and we can just claim to be on official SHIELD business if anyone gives us a hard time.  It makes a great get-out-of-jail-free-card in a tight spot.  Oh, umm, do you understand that reference?  It’s from this game called Monopoly that’s pretty boring if you can’t count well, or the banker is someone like Phil who’s stingy with the money.”

“When are you going to ask me about it?” Natasha cut into his monologue.  Clint flashed a look of surprise before he could control it. 

“About what?”

“About me trying to blow my brains out.” 

She went for the blunt, vulgar assessment of what happened to shock Clint into being serious.  It worked. 

Clint flinched.  His hand went to his chest and his gaze fell to her hand. 

Their day together had been a fun distraction but Natasha was done playing games.  She knew why Clint had come to her, suggested they go out.  Things were getting too personal with Barton.  She couldn’t remember the last time she’d allowed herself to fall asleep in front of a stranger, ally by her side or not.  She’d become disgustingly complacent. 

After a pause, Clint’s eyes were back to Natasha’s.  He leaned close and in the tight quiet of the hallway, Natasha didn’t breathe. 

“We can talk about that when you want to.  Not before.  We can’t go on missions together until you tell someone about what happened but it’s up to you when you want to talk.  Heck, you don’t even need to talk to me, if you don’t want to.  I just wanted to get off the base with you.” 

He winked.  The pinch of skin between Natasha’s forehead and nose wrinkled as she tried not to grin despite the serious subject.  The man actually _winked_.  She could hit him, she was so mad at him for making everything seem okay and normal.      

It reminded her of their early days, when she’d broken out and Clint chased her up a ventilation shaft.  He wore the same expression then, too.  One of honest content at being close to her, a gaze that wasn’t chiding or pitying.  He understood her.  Clint knew what to say to her when she didn’t know what to say to herself.  She’d say he was an excellent spy when it came to manipulation if she hadn’t seen firsthand how poor his poker skills were.  Clint was honest.  It was just her he was good at reading, a fact that should have frightened Natasha more than it did. 

“Look, I . . .” Clint ran a palm over the back of his neck.  “Just have fun right now, okay?  We can talk about this heavy stuff later.  I’ve been waitin’ months since you told me you could, to see you dance.”

“Clint.”

“Yeah?”

“You’re an idiot.”

Never one to second guess her instincts, Natasha leaned forward and kissed his cheek.  It was quick and a little rough and Clint turned so the edges of their lips brushed before Natasha pulled away.  Without looking back, Natasha left.  Something finch sized fluttered deep in her chest that reminded her of Clint’s wings. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title of chapter inspired by the song “Rally” by Phoenix.
> 
> Pitor is influenced by his persona in “Uncanny X-Men”, the early days from the late ‘70s. I don’t even care if Pitor isn’t like this later in the series, or if he and Clint don’t actually get alone. He’s an adorable giant of a man who was broken from mind control because Storm reminded him that the X-Men are a family. What’s not to love? And yes, I know he’s “Peter Rasputin” but I’ve heard it pronounced “Pitor” and enjoy that much more.
> 
> Most of my understanding of fairgrounds comes from the Delmar Fair down here in San Diego.


	10. Atlas

By the time Clint took his seat, the theater was empty but for the bartender, wrapping up cleaning routine. Clint settled into the table he and Natasha ate at near an hour ago. It’d been cleaned but Clint found a few wayward crumbs. Minutes ticked by without word from Pitor or Natasha. Now and again he heard a noise; the shifting of curtains or a half-caught cough. 

He was getting hungry and could use a drink but the bartender was gone now, leaving Clint alone in the suddenly cavernous theater. When the crumbs started to look appetizing, Clint made to stand. Just then, lights flickered, indicating an upcoming performance. He sank back down, thirst and hunger forgotten at once. 

It was a while yet before anything happened but Clint didn’t mind, now that he had something to focus on. He lost sense of time, waiting for Natasha. A nervous joy soaked into him. He was finally going to see Natasha dance; see his soulmate performing the one thing that made her eyes bright. When she’d seen the other dancers, Clint had to restrain himself from reaching out for her. Joy, joy, joy, radiated through their string. Clint was sure she was in love. Perhaps not with him, but Clint would do whatever it took to see that expression in her again. 

Plus, from how elegantly she handled herself on the battle field, Clint knew he was in for a show. 

His patience was rewarded when the curtains rolled open, Natasha alone on stage in the dark. Clint leaned forward, eyes cataloguing her stance. She’d been given new clothes for the dance, white leggings and a tight white blouse. Her hair had been tied into a bun and red fabric colored middle of her chest. The Black Widow had been turned white. 

A spot light illuminated her at the same time music started, a slow piano song Clint recognized but couldn’t place. Three notes into the song, Natasha started to move. Her expression was carefully neutral and her movements slow as a heart beat at sleep. It followed the unhurried song. Clint felt lulled. As she danced, their string followed along, flitting back and forth from middle to pinky finger – lust to affection. 

The music picked up, as did Natasha’s movements. Clint had no idea what the technical terms were for what she did, legs and arms and torso twisting as she explored the stage. He’d ask her later. For now he watched. 

As the tempo increased, Natasha’s movements followed. Soon she was leaping through the air and Clint touched his chest where their string felt so light he feared for a moment it would fade away. Silly thought; the string was a darker shade of red than ever before. 

Natasha did a final jump and the music cut out. She struck a last pose, arms crossed over her chest as the light went off. 

It was over. 

Did he clap? Was that something people did at ballet? Clint wanted to clap but the curtains started to close. He stood so quick his chair flopped over. Clint whistled loud enough to be heard over the 'thunnk' of the chair and started to clap. Natasha’s shoulders shook just as the curtains obscured her. Clint knew by the sensation from their string that she was laughing. 

Clint didn’t bother to pick up the chair as he sprinted for the stage. When he parted the curtains, Natasha was almost out of sight by the left wing. Luckily for him, her white clothes stood out like neon in the dark. 

“Tasha! Nat, wait!” Natasha paused and watched him over her shoulder. Clint could just kiss her. 

He hurried forward and did, turning her around for a quick peck in case she rejected his buoyant affection. Clint had a sense she wouldn’t. 

“That was –” 

Awesome? Beautiful? Amazing? Undeniably sexy; you’re my soulmate so let’s get to business. 

“That was something.” 

Natasha’s trademark eyebrow rose. He’d never seen a gesture so sarcastic before. The pull at her lips let him know she was amused. He kissed her again. This time he felt their string pulse with affection from her. Even if Natasha wasn’t physically responding, her soul was. 

“Are you going to dance again?”

“No. Perhaps another time. I would like to go, now.” 

Natasha was happy but there was a definite weariness to her voice. Clint noted that she was somewhat out of breath. It was the kind of fatigue that came with doing too many fun things, like children collapsing after a day at the circus. Clint had seen it enough times when he had performed that he recognized it. The look was cute on Natasha, though he wished she wasn’t too unused to enjoying herself. 

“Sure. Why don’t you change and – uh – we’ll head out.” 

Natasha nodded and slipped away, content to be silent. Clint stretched his shoulders before heading back out of the curtains to their table. Pitor was waiting there for him, plucking crumbs from the table. The chair was set straight. Clint almost felt guilty.

“She is beautiful,” Pitor told him. He laughed at the size of Clint’s grin but the archer didn’t care. He felt like he was walking on air. 

“Are you kidding me? Beautiful doesn’t even cover it.” 

Too full with energy to sit, Clint stood close to the table and spoke with Pitor. When Natasha came from one of the back rooms, dressed in the clothes she’d been in before, he couldn’t remember a word he’d said but the giant lug wasn’t offended. He laughed again and waved the two off. Natasha nodded to him and led Clint out into the hot summer night’s air. Lights were going out through the carnival, dark in patches and glowing in others. Trash coated the ground, broken bits of popcorn, gum with shoe treads in it, paper and wrappers being swept into dustbins. Most of the crowd was gone now, those left exiting by the same direction. Clint bumped Natasha’s shoulder with his own and when she turned to him he was pretending to be focused on a powered down rollercoaster. 

“Thanks for comin’ with me tonight,” he told her. She scoffed at him. “So, your place or mine?”

“We live at the same facility.”

“So,” he turned to her, waggling his eyebrows at her. She put a palm to his face and shoved him away. “I don’t have any roommates.”

“Funny, neither do I.” She’d never been trusted enough to have them. In boot-camp everyone was kept under the same, strict conditions. If she attacked someone in their sleep there was a room of fifteen other recruits to fight her off. The same could not be said for the rooms in SHIELD. 

“You’re no fun,” Clint objected. 

“Someone has to counter you out.” He bumped her shoulder again. 

“Your dancing was great by the way.”

“It was sloppy. I haven’t practiced ballet in months and it showed.”

“Could have fooled me.”

As they exited the park Clint stopped the stare back on it. Growing up in the circus had been rough but he wouldn’t have wanted it otherwise. To visit that type of life again, to share it with Natasha, had been good for him. He felt lighter. Healthier despite the poor quality food. It was nice to play civilian again, to know what it was like for the people he fought tooth and nail to protect. When he glanced at Natasha again she bore a similar expression. 

“Let’s go home,” she told him when she caught him staring. Home. He tucked an arm under hers and led the way back to his car.

:::::::::::::::::::

They were quiet on the ride back, Clint driving this time. Although they were in silence neither bothered to turn on the radio. The air was tense, far more so than before Natasha took the stage or even when they’d first come to the carnival. Neither wanted sound from the radio to snip the upcoming conversation but likewise, neither knew how to begin said conversation. Clit tapped the steering wheel and Natasha crossed her arms tight over her gut like a seat-belt. Light from lampposts and other cars filtered through the car window.

At the second stop light Natasha began to speak. 

“When I was young, too young to read, my family was killed.” She told him about the fire, about the mutant who had rescued her, and her utter confusion. Her parents had been killed by the secret police, as the mutant had told her. She didn’t know if that was the truth or not. She didn’t even know how she’d been separated from him because most of her memory had been wiped by agency after agency. 

She could tell Clint wanted to interject but she warned him to be still until she finished. Natasha was terrified she wouldn’t be able to say anything otherwise. At the fifth stoplight she told him about her first agency. Most of her memories of that time were gone. What remained were flashes of things, training, fighting, and being taught basic necessities from reading to how to protect oneself in an attack. From the training ground she was sold to another agency when she reached puberty. From there she was taught to kill and how to seduce. 

Clint’s hands tightened on the steering wheel and behind them a car honked because the light was green. He cursed and sped off but didn’t say another word so Natasha continued. She explained what she could, fragments of memories, drowning a man in a hotel bathroom, bashing in another’s nose into his skull, letting an elite business woman do what she willed with Natasha’s body so she could steal information. She told Clint about the multiple of ways she’d been used to kill or for sex. She told him about the child she’d had to strangle, the way his bright blue eyes wept and bulged like they’d pop. She told him about the man with a raspy voice and a bad toupee she let paw at her until he let his guard down enough she could cut off his hand to use for security clearance. She told him about the headaches, the bone weary sickness and alienation that came from having her memory wiped. She told him about the nervousness of other Black Widows around her, how even killers were wary. Natasha explained Winter Soldier, how similar and broken they were and that out of every person she’d met it was only he that she’d wanted to have sex with. Her memories of Winter Soldier were so bright they hurt.

Natasha told Clint about the hospital fire when they were nearly home and Clint had to pull off the road. She couldn’t stop talking. A stopper on her bottled up heart had been loosed and it couldn’t be put back. She spoke through a shaking voice and Clint tore off both their seat-belts before pulling her into his arms. Natasha fought at first, terrified, half caught in the heat and agony of that fire but Clint was there, whispering nonsense to her. Her hair was damp from his tears and she buried her face into his shoulder, smearing tears as snot into it but Clint didn’t complain, not once. 

He didn’t say, “I’m sorry” or “You’re so brave” or any other useless phrases. He held her as much as she held him, each of them sobbing for reasons that couldn’t be pinned. Loss? Anger? Something more. Clint wept for the child soldier, the prostitute, the broken doll who’d come to life when no one wanted it. He wept for himself, for his soulmate, for every scar on their hearts. Above them the car’s light flickered and the engine sputtered and the seat-belt warning clicked. Cars flew past them, rocking their own on the tiny dirt road Clint had pulled into. 

“I didn’t mean to,” Natasha croaked. Her voice wasn’t working right and her eyes were blurry. Her head throbbed and she could feel Clint’s heart pulsing under her jaw. It was alive, beating for them both because Natasha felt cold and dead compared to him. “I didn’t mean to put the gun in my mouth. It happens sometimes. When it’s –” She choked back the next words and squeezed her eyes shut. It happened when it was all too much. She acted without thought. When her world collapsed on her Natasha’s instincts told her to get out before she was compromised. It’d been ingrained in her from her stolen childhood.   
“I want to live.” 

At the words her heart lurched. Clint’s arms tightened around her but it didn’t feel like a cage at all. Her throat burned and she couldn’t see but Natasha had never felt more alive than the day she was born. 

“I want to live,” she repeated. “I want to live.” 

::::::::::::::::::::::::

It took significantly longer to get home than either of them had intended. Too shaky to return to her own room alone, Natasha let Clint guide her to his room. They lay in the dark, Natasha’s toes touching Clint’s socks as he pulled a thin grey sheet over them both. She wasn’t sure which of them was holding the other but she didn’t care to ponder it. Neither spoke. There wasn’t another noise in the room aside from pipes shifting in the walls and the groan of the air-conditioning.

Clint wanted to tell her everything, about his parent’s death and what it was like in the circus. Most of all he wanted to tell her about the string, glowing in the dark like embers. But Natasha had fallen asleep, or into a much of a sleep as she could. Her eyes closed and moved under their lids. A frown caught her lips but when Clint kissed her brows they loosened and she relaxed. 

Another time. He closed his own eyes and tried to replace the images of Natasha killing children with that of her ballet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author Notes: As deeply I apologize for the absurdly long hiatus I also thank each and every one of you who follows this story and has spoke to me or encouraged me to keep writing just by letting your presence be known. This chapter is short but it has been a long time coming. From here things are going to get rolling. Budapest is next.
> 
> I highly encourage you to listen to the song, “Prelude: The Atlas March”. While listing to my music on shuffle this song began the literal moment I wrote “I want to live” and is quite possibly the best song to accompany that moment.   
> Thank you all again and see you soon(er).


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